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Arnab Goswami is easy to place. He is out-and out 'nationalist’. Rajdeep Sardesai is difficult to make. When he claims he’s ‘anti-national’, he could be joking, sarcastic. The ‘five’ in the eye of the storm give contradictory signals. Sudha Bhardwaj is ‘inherently good’ and just doesn’t fit the ‘assassin-profile.’ Fiery poet Varavara Rao is confirmed ‘revolutionary poet.’ Gautam Navlakha devotes his pen to the separatist. To hordes of people that makes him a slime. Lawyers Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves are allegedly true-blue ‘Maoists?’

An 8 year old girl dies in Uttar Pradesh’s Mahua village after being allegedly deprived of timely medical attention after demonetisation in November 2016 as her family had only old notes and had no time for exchange. On November 10, 2016, Teerthraji, 60 died in Gorakhpur after she collapsed in front of a closed gate of a bank. Vishwanath Vartak, 73 collapsed and died on the spot after having waited in a queue at a SBI branch for more than five hours that very month. All of them belong to that 100 odd people(nearly 120 as per the latest estimate) who died following the “historic” decision of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8 night of 2016.The new age dream merchant of India projected a nation without black money, counterfeit notes, check on terror funds leading to a transparent honest economy.

NEW DELHI: The National Secretariat of the Communist Party of India today condemned serial raids across the country on homes of activists and public intellectuals Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Gautam Navlakha, Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira who are fighting for justice for Dalit, Adivasis and other marginalised sections of the society. These individuals are labelled as “Urban Naxalite”.

The fault-lines have deepened. Opposing armies are arms-ready. Supporters have marked themselves in watertight compartments. Poison-tipped verbal barbs cut across boundaries. Media, the ever-ready facilitator, is telling stories bolstering and blistering egos, chances. The BJP and Congress are at the throats of each other’s top icon: Rahul arraigned against Modi.

Lawyer Surendra Gadling successfully defending his clients under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) was arrested and thrown behind bars since June 6 of this year. Now lawyer Susan Abraham defending Gadling in Pune has seen her house in Mumbai raided and her husband Vernon Gonsalves arrested. Vernon has earlier faced prosecution under UAPA and was acquitted after spending over five years in prison. Today, he has been arrested again. Sudha Bharadwaj, a prominent trade unionist and academic, has been arrested and will be taken to Pune, as per latest reports. Her 20-year-old daughter has had her Facebook accounts locked and her electronic devices confiscated.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Policies are meant to wipe off tears, not reduce people to tears. The rulers and politicians would do well to recall the famous words of Mahatma Gandhi in this regard. Gandhiji said in a memorable quote which has universal relevance: Before you take a decision, think whether it would benefit the people. If the answer is in the negative, then do not take it.

The commanding heights of the domestic economy as the public sector undertakings (PSUS) were once famously lionized in the Nehruvian socialist past have come a long way since the liberalisation of the Indian economy unleashed by the non-family but non-pareil Prime Minister Narashima Rao in the early 1990s. It is an open secret that in the extant competitive market economy India had embraced with little qualms despite occasional outpourings of sympathy for support to the PSUs lest the restive army of employees should take them amiss, the NDA government of Vajpayee vintage resolved to bolster only the best performing central public sector enterprises (CPSEs). It is not for nothing that the Vajpayee government in its first non-Congress but BJP-led coalition regime in its six year tenure during 1998-2004 (first for 18 months and another tenure for four years as it cut short its span by a year) boldly unveiled a policy of strategic disinvestment as it scarcely suffered any paroxysm of false pangs on that score.

Varavara Rao is 77 years old – he is a well-known Telugu poet, college principal and human rights activist - his house in Hyderabad was raided on Tuesday morning. The reason, according to the police, is that he is suspected of plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The basis of the Opposition challenge to the BJP in the forthcoming State Assembly elections and next year’s general election is the formation of an alliance of regional parties. As is known in political circles, this togetherness will not be easy to achieve in view of the mercurial temperament of some of the leaders and the conflicting demands of the various parties.

Finally, after decades there is a Stalin at the head of a party, never mind if he is not Russian but a Tamil of India. MK Stalin is only the second president of the DMK and he’s got an elder brother who has no Russian to emulate but going by reputation and perception could be more Stalin than the Stalin who got himself chosen party boss.