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On the bustling streets of Ho Chi Minh City, for at least a moment, it’s possible to forget that this was once the center of a war zone. Just over fifty years ago, on January 30, 1968, the grounds of the American embassy in Saigon (as this city was then known) were captured by guerrillas of the National Liberation Front (NLF). They managed to hold on for six hours before U.S. paratroopers retook the compound, leaving the area littered with the bodies of NLF fighters. Similar scenes were repeated all over the city and up and down the country.

Statues are sitting ducks. Lenin, Periyar, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee… Toppled, battered, blackened, statues can do nothing. Statues everywhere are game for pigeon, crow, and vandal. And if a BJP office in Coimbatore gets petrol-bombed, that is not enough retaliation for the statue in the Statute.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu braved the freezing Davos cold in a safari suit and then returned home with a special chill reserved for the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who he met 29 times in four years but could not convince to part with ‘Special Status’ for Andhra Pradesh. Modi has agreed to a ‘Special Package’, take it or leave it.

Fears of a trade war loomed large after Trump administration decided to impose high tariffs on steel, aluminum, solar panels and washing machines. The immediate impact was reflected in BSE Sensex, which dipped sharply by over 1,000 points within two days of working in the second week of March.

Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth. Comparisons must be in order. Especially after Monday’s Rajini-address. The two are so dissimilar it needs no description. At the same time the two are so dissimilar it begs explanation!

After the Union Budget 2018-19 unveiled the twin initiatives on the country’s proverbially rickety health segment—reinforcing the wobbly primary health center (PHC) edifice through a network of 1.5 lakh health and wellness centers and extending an annual hospitalisation cover of five lakh of rupees for 100 million poor families under the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS), there was an outrageous onslaught across the political and academic divides. The principal and incontrovertible facet of the volley of vituperative reactions revolved around the ubiquitous ground reality of the non-functioning of PHCs, particularly in rural areas, where their activities need to work in clockwork precision to provide primary care to those in dire need.

Widening trade deficit to a 65-month high at $16.3 billion in January this year has raised eyebrows, that too at a time when India’s exports have started looking up somewhat in recent quarters after a poor showing last couple of years. This is because of the surge in imports of crude oil and precious stones. Global oil prices have started increasing lately and it is not clear where it is going stabilise. The trade deficit might have expanded much faster this year than last year but the fact of the matter is that this is the right time for India to start big ticket exports reform so that the country can play a significant role in world trade.

Behind the defeat of the Left in Tripura lies the failure of the communists to realize that capitalism is no longer regarded by the ordinary people as an ogre as envisaged by Marx when he said that “capital comes into the world soiled with mire from top to toe and oozing blood from every pore”.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar is a man the cows love and human beings love to dislike. In Khattar’s world, cows have more rights than human beings. And that is a fact he displays with word and deed. All 16 posts in the Gau Sewa Aayog have been filled while the Haryana Human Rights Commission has been headless for 19 months.

The fall of the CPI-M citadel of Tripura is the most remarkable outcome of the results of the three states that went to assembly polls last month. Everyone including the CPI-M knew that the electoral battle in Tripura this time will be fiercely fought, but most expected the CPI-M to return to power with a reduced majority. The outcome has confounded everyone. The CPI-M has suffered a complete rout after 25 years of uninterrupted rule. The BJP-IPFT alliance has won 43 seats while the CPI-M has been reduced to just 16 seats in a house of 60.