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BSP chief Mayawati is brimming with generosity. Like her entering into alliance with Samajwadi Party after nearly a quarter century of nursing animosity, her leaving two seats to the Congress president Rahul Gandhi and for his mother Sonia Gandhi is an exceptional political act. By indulging in such activity she has managed to send a strong message of possessing a big generous heart.

While the Opposition has been touting a Mahagathbandhan (Grand Alliance), what is happening on the ground is quite different. It is quite clear now that a Grand Alliance is unlikely and instead the parties are inclined to go for state-specific alliances. This is because the Opposition is not united in choosing a leader as the prime ministerial face and also the ego problem of the regional satraps like Mamata Banerjee and Mayawati. All of them want to keep their options open for a post-poll scenario.

BHOPAL: Both BJP and Congress have started preparations for the Lok Sabha elections in Madhya Pradesh. At present Congress holds only three seats while the BJP’s tally is 26. The Congress won only two seats in the 2014 general elections. The victorious candidates were Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia. But their victories in the strict sense cannot be termed as victory of Congress. They owe their election to their personal popularity.

BHOPAL: The Measles and Rubella immunisation campaign is going to be rolled out from tomorrow. The campaign will be run for one month. This is part of the nationwide Measles and Rubella immunisation campaign, under which all children from 9 months to 15 years will be vaccinated. The drive would be carried out in government and private schools, hospitals and other institutions, so that no child is left behind. Madhya Pradesh is still one of the states where malnutrition, infant mortality and child mortality rate are high. Diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea and measles are also the major cause of child mortality. But for the past two-three years child health and nutrition levels are showing improvement in the state. One of the major reasons for this is awareness among people about immunisation.

The day after Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav sealed the SP-BSP gathbandhan for Uttar Pradesh, several you-tubers went to different parts of UP to test the impact of the gathbandhan. Impact it did, and how? ‘It rocked’, is one way to put it, sent shock waves and drew, in equal part ‘resolve’ and ‘triumph’. The resolve in supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “defeat the tugbandhan” and the sense of ‘triumph’ in gathbandhan-votaries, who promised to “wipe-out” Modi from the face of Uttar Pradesh, just you wait and see!

Thousands marched through Berlin on January 13 to pay their respects 100 years after the brutal murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht on January 15, 1919.

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

The Parliament has passed the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Fourth) Amendment Bill, 2019, which sought to amend Articles 15 and 16 of the Constitution, by providing 10 per cent reservation in the public employment and higher education for the economically weaker sections. The economically weaker sections would be determined by the State keeping in mind the family income and other indicators of economic disadvantage. The Bill received the Presidential Assent on 12th January, 2019 and has become the law now. Thus, in one stroke, this Government changed the complete spirit and ethos of the reservation policy, which till now meant to redress the historic caste-based oppression in India.

Even as Assam and parts of the Northeast remain embroiled in vigorous protests against the Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016, one hopeful sign is that new ideas to arrive at a balanced solution have been put forward. The fact that there has been no major outbreak of ethnic violence among dominant groups in the region also fosters optimism during an obviously tense confrontation between the Centre and the non–BJP opposition parties.

As the humiliating treatment of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh by the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the matter of seat distribution for the parliamentary polls, and the party’s defiant response show, the 134-year political patriarch is currently battling both the ghosts of its past and apprehensions about its freshly kindled hopes of the future among its opponents.