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KOLKATA: With the BJP and Trinamool Congress candidates hailing from Bengali film world, there is a surfeit of glamour at Ghatal constituency in West Bengal which goes to polls on May 25. But even as he seeks the people's verdict for the second time, Trinamool Congress candidate Dev aka Dipak Adhikari is yet to become a seasoned politician in word and deed.

On May 6, Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), visited Tehran and met with Hossein Amirabdollahian, Iran's Foreign Minister. Shortly after, on May 19, a tragic helicopter crash claimed the lives of Mr. Amirabdollahian and Ebrahim Raisi, the President of Iran, along with others.

“Rejoice Brothers and sisters” Rejoice Today, after 451 years of alien rule, Goa is free and united with the mother land. Our brothers are there to protect you”.

It was inevitable. It was to happen. Never before in its hundred years of existence, no Sarasaṅghacālaka, chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the right-wing organisation, the parent entente of the BJP, had faced this nature of humiliation as the incumbent Mohan Bhagwat has to suffer from none else but by the BJP national president J P Nadda. It is beyond comprehension how could Nadda insult RSS the head of all the Sangh Parivar groups.

NDA’s overwhelming political dominance in Bihar, that it had established by winning 39 out of the 40 Lok Sabha constituencies in 2019, is all set to ultimately become a thing of the past. The jolt that BJP-JD(U)-LJP disintegration had inflicted upon the NDA has left scars even after their reintegration just before the Lok Sabha election 2024, and there seems to be no recovery even at the penultimate phase of election campaign is nearing to its close on May 23.

The death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a plane crash would likely exacerbate the power struggle among hardline factions within the Islamic Republic. These factions are vying for influence in the succession of the aging Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Supreme Leader.

The far right parties of Europe have started massive joint campaign to sweep the elections to European Parliament scheduled for three days June 6 to June 9 this year. Presently, the EP is dominated by a combination of centrists mild right and various shades of Left. But in the last four years, the European Union members excluding Spain have seen the strengthening of the far right in the national elections. As a result, the combined strength of the far right parties is far more compared to the present position of the anti far right parties.

BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra should be out on his rump in a Puri thoroughfare for calling Lord Jagannath a 'bhakta' of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Poor fellow's hallucination went to his wayward tongue and the tongue slipped. The ‘Mahaprabhu’ of all of Odisha cannot be trifled with and Patra is the BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Puri favoured to win the seat after Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigned for him and the two did a roadshow riding the BJP’s election juggernaut.

KOLKATA: Marital discord deteriorating into divorce may not be an unusual occurrence, but when onetime spouses contest against each other in a Lok Sabha constituency, it hits headlines. Bishnupur constituency stands apart from other Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal and perhaps in the rest of the country where sitting BJP MP Soumitra Khan is pitted against Trinamool Congress nominee and his former wife, Sujata Mondal in electoral battle, scheduled on May 25 in the sixth phase.

Not only does growing big volumes of excess global steel capacity unsettle the market but the phenomenon has disturbing implications for the environment. OECD says: “Back-of-the-envelope calculations will show… reduction in global excess capacity by approximately one-third would lead to a reduction in emissions… in the range of 2 to 14 per cent and also much healthier business conditions for steel producers.” Alas, the pressure of overcapacity will become even more intense in the future. According to OECD, in the face of demand growth being clouded by economic headwinds, global steel capacity is to see significant rise in three years to 2026, “with 46m tonne addition underway and an additional 78m tonnes in the planning stage.”