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“Nature is plundered for the greed of profit of the monopolies, including the recent destruction of Amazonia in the interests of capitalism”, noted the 2200-plus word appeal of the 21st international meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in Izmir, the third-largest city of Turkey on the Aegean coast, known as Smyrna in antiquity, between 18 and 20 October. Coincidentally, city founded by the Greeks, subsequently taken over by the Romans and rebuilt by Alexander the Great , later a part of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, was shaken by an earthquake of a magnitude of 5.8 on the Richter Scale, a short while before the jamboree of official Marxists of the globe. It was rediscovered that the city lies on 17 active fault lines with the potential to cause earthquakes with magnitudes ranging between 6 and 7.2.

Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi is retiring on November 17. Lawyers often joke that an incumbent chief justice of India always makes the last one look better, and nowhere has it been more true than the present one. In the run up to the retirement of Chief Justice Dipak Mishra (Retd.) in the last week of September, 2018, there was much anticipation of the onset of ‘new era’ under the stewardship of the Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, who was supposed to be upright and no nonsense person, and who participated in that landmark press conference by the four seniormost judges on 12th January, 2018. Alas, the last one year has been such a shock to the ‘collective conscience’ of the lawyers, jurists, and common public that people are now talking fondly of Justice Dipak Mishra, and how he was not ‘so bad’. It’s like our current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, making the Hindutva ideologue, L.K. Advani look better.

Shouts of joy rang out on October 27 night at Berlin’s Karl Liebknecht Haus, headquarters of Germany’s Left Party (Die Linke), when it was learned that Die Linke won the state elections in Thuringia with 31% of the vote, the highest total ever for the party in any of Germany’s 16 states.

LONDON: In his fourth bid the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson managed to get the approval of the MPs to finally resolve the Brexit deadlock by calling a general election, on 12 December which would be the most unpredictable in a generation.

LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party national President and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav should read wake up call for his party in recently concluded by-elections for 11 assembly seats. Samajwadi Party not only retained its seat in Rampur but also added Jalalpur from BSP and Jaipur from BJP.

The coalition is always a compulsion; it is never a choice for peaceful co-existence to take the power sharing ahead. Political power, by its nature, is always up for grab and sharing it with any other political party hinders the organizational growth of the party. The so called coalition Dharma holds good up to the juncture where the major partner in coalition is not critically dependent on other partners in numbers. The power and vote bank consolidation are in the heart of Indian politics which usually contradicts the politics of coalition. The Maharashtra potpourri of BJP-Shiv Sena tussle is a reflection of that. The contention regarding 50:50 power-sharing between BJP and Shiv Sena is the prelude of that contraction only.

One may or may not agree with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights about its assessment of the situation in Kashmir. But no proud Indian can back its attempt to cast aspersions on the integrity of our Supreme Court.

Erle Stanley Gardner could well have written another Perry Mason thriller with the title: “The Mystery of the European Union Parliamentary Delegation” visiting Kashmir. There is a lot of mystery about the status of the delegation, who invited them, who fixed their meeting with the Prime Minister, who paid for their travel and stay expenses and how the members of the delegation were selected and by whom. One thing is certain. They neither represent the European Union nor the governments of their countries. Their status and credibility are being widely questioned even in Europe.

NDA Union Government has dropped data on communal violence in its Annual Report 2018-19 for the first time as part of its continuing tampering, manipulation and fudging of all sorts of official data, be it GDP related, unemployment related, inflation related and others claiming all were hunky dory in the country. This follows spike in communal riots by 28 per cent by the end of 2017 since 2014 when the BJP led Union Government first assumed office. It has also withheld data on mob lynching and hate crimes.

New Delhi: Ravinder won India’s first medal, in the ongoing U-23 World Wrestling Championships as he grabbed the silver medal in 61kg in Budapest, Hungary on Wednesday.