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The war hysteria of words and cacophony through media advertisements of achievements of the last five years by the NaMo government clearly indicates that neither the Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor his cohorts have a clear idea of why the Indian electorate had given him a clear mandate. It was clearly a mandate to him and not to his party as his entire campaign in the last election was focused on seeking a vote for his government. He and his campaign managers do not realize that what has been delivered is of no consequences to the electorate. What matters is what has not been delivered or what new difficulties that have cropped up. The campaign ads mention only what has been delivered.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s formula of posting a single united opposition candidate against the BJP candidate in every single Lok Sabha seat seems to have no takers. The BSP-SP-RLD alliance in Uttar Pradesh was first strike. Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav partitioned the 80 UP seats, leaving Rae Bareilly and Amethi to the Congress, one less than the three to Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal. Where did that leave Rahul Gandhi’s PM-aspiring party? As if granted a favour, two!

Workers are the producers of the wealth of Nation. As a class they are the harbingers of socio-political change. When the country stands at cross roads, it is the working class who shows the real path of advancement for the deprived and the oppressed. Througout the history and everywhere in the world this fact has been proved. That is why the capitalist class and their governments are eager to disarm the workers before they unleash any attack on the toiling masses.

India has shown to the world that it is able manage sanitation and waste disposal programme on a large scale. The test for this was in large traffic and crowd management plan and cleanliness drive at the recently concluded vast conclave of religious gathering, Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj in the country’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh.

The Attorney General of the Government of India K K Venugopal’s comments in the Supreme Court in the course of the hearing on the Rafale petition on March 6 pose a grave threat to the freedom of the press in the country at this moment when the hyper nationalism promoted by the ruling party and the government establishment, has already crippled the independent functioning of major part of the corporate led media in the name of national security.

India can neither afford to stave off, nor be immune to Trump’s protectionism. Flagged up by “America First” as the guiding principle, last year Trump administration waged tariff war and this year, it lofted GSP (Generalized Preference Scheme) war against developing nations, including India.

BJP spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia is asked the question, “Are you (BJP) milking this (pre-emptive strikes)?” and he goes on a tangent: “I don’t think anybody in India doubts the armed forces. Our brave Indian Air Force pilots crossed a red line for the first time…” Hey, you’re digressing. ‘Is the BJP using the strikes to win the elections?’ is the question. Gaurav Bhatia will not answer, he’s a robot keyed not to answer such quibbles.

‘Rafale’ is now more of a metonymy than a fighter-jet, like the Watergate scandal that cooked American President Richard Nixon’s goose. Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces somewhat a similar situation though nowhere as conclusive. Strikingly, if nothing else, there is a similarity: The Watergate scandal broke after a break-in by five men at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington; ‘Rafale-gate’ now has a ‘burglar’ in the mix though in Rafale’s case, it’s the Government of India which alleges break-in.

Weekly Round-Up of Major Decisions of the Courts in India as also Legal Policy Developments

Almost four years after the shocking killing of M.M. Kalburgi, Kannada scholar and rationalist on 30th August, 2015, the Supreme Court directed the Special Investigation Team (‘SIT’) investigating the murder of journalist and activist, Gauri Lankesh, in September, 2017 to investigate the murder of Kalburgi also, owing to striking ‘similarities’ between the two cases. The Court further directed that the monitoring of the investigation would be done by the Karnataka High Court in its Dharwad Bench. Significantly, the Apex Court in December, 2018 had remarked that if there was a link between the killings of Govind Pansare, Narendra Dabholkar, M.M. Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh, then one agency should investigate them, instead of multiple agencies.