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By any metric the rise of the Brexit Party is phenomenal. In a matter of weeks the party has held rally after rally with thousands in attendance, and notably in working-class areas like Newport and Peterborough. It has every chance of getting the largest share of the vote in the Euro elections. And it has a social media following already in the hundreds of thousands.

One cannot help but tremble at the very thought that even today human beings go down in the gutters full of garbage to clean them manually. During the process they get submerged in the waste, which we even hate to smell. It is not unlikely that deep in the sewer where hot dirty water and soiled waste is flowing, some of it enters into the mouth and stomach leading to serious health problems. As a result many of them fall prey to several diseases of skin, eyes, oral cavity, respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract, nervous system and may develop even mental problems. In extreme situations they fall unconscious after inhaling poisonous gases which many a times proves fatal.

A Lalu Yadav in jail is more dangerous for Narendra Modi and his buddy Nitish Kumar than a Lalu Yadav moving around and campaigning for Mahagathbandhan in Bihar. The BJP and JD(U) leaders must be feeling content at Lalu being denied of the opportunity to interact with his supporters and sympathizer and appeal to them to ensure the victory of the grand alliance.

There may be a reason why Mamata Banerjee turned down Chandrababu Naidu’s request to be present at a meeting of opposition leaders to be hosted by the Congress in Delhi just before the declaration of results.

Indian billionaires are galore and growing. But, where are new local big time industrial investors? In fact, there are hardly any. The last five years have seen more industrial sickness than ever before for a same period. Banks have lost advances worth billions of crores to industry as stricken assets. Many companies have been referred to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board (IBBI) by creditors for resolution. However, few genuine local bidders are coming to their rescue. In a way, banks themselves are responsible for the situation. Dishonest bankers deliberately overlooked inflated project cost estimates by promoters before clearing their loan applications. This helped promoters happily siphon of surplus loan funds to create private wealth. Higher project cost means higher product cost. Thus, many projects turned sick even before taking off. Now, scores of large heavily borrowed sick public companies are under the IBBI hammer. Defaulted promoters are barred from bidding for their bankrupt companies though, quite surprisingly, some of them have offered to substantially clear their debts. One wonders if these defaulters have the necessary resources, why did they wait this long to be pushed to bankruptcy proceedings by their large creditors?

Tomorrow and May 19 and then this long cycle of ‘whither Modi, whether Modi?’ will come to a close on May 23, the day the earth will shift on its axis and for millions it will be either a new dawn or the same, sit on the porch and watch the twilight throw its shadows. Either way, the journalist can only chronicle. The Economist’s Agent Orange has said his piece and Aatish Tasveer has added his words in Time!

Controversy regarding Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent statement that former prime minister was “a number one corrupted leader” refuses to die down as the Congress hasn't taken it lightly. The grand old party and its associates have been strictly denouncing Modi as according to them such comments are unsuitable for a prime minister.

Nursing ambition is not bad, more so for a politician. The day a person enters into politics he aspires to becoming a minister if not the chief minister. But for Nitish Kumar politics has been more than obsession. If Kumar has been obsessed with power at the same time he has been egocentric about his image and intriguingly fearful of his survival.

The Election Commission under T N Seshan, described as a maverick by some but by some others as the most conscientious and independent poll official the country has ever seen, was expanded to include more members to restrain the Chief Election Commissioner from overreaching. But with the incumbent Election Commission, inaction has become its trade mark and it is the height of irony that the presence of more members is bringing at least a semblance of activity within Nirvachan Sadan, though it has not made any difference on the ground.

By the time this column appears in print only one phase of election—May 19—would have been left. What appears certain, and can be predicted with certainty, is that no party—neither the BJP nor the Congress-- is going to get a majority. Chances are that the BJP, along with its allies, may emerge as the single largest party and Narendra Modi may become the Prime Minister again but a weak one. Even senior leader of the BJP, Ram Madhav, has gone on record, saying that the BJP will not get majority. The Shiv Sena has also firmly indicated that there is no chance of BJP getting a majority. The BJP has inevitably to depend on other parties to form the government. That means lot of bargaining and horse trading.