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While the Congress President Mr Rahul Gandhi and his senior party colleagues remain fixated on the mysterious Rafale Deal and embroiled in accusatory battles with BJP, the ruling party fights back furiously as if they see a nemesis in that deal for the Prime Minister in 2019.

You think ‘Thugs of Hindostan’ and you think ‘Aamir Khan’, criminal politicians, Mumbai dons, shady lawyers, sleazy diamond merchants, kingfisher beer and Philip Meadows Taylor, God rest his soul. Oops! He will not be happy at all. For several reasons, including because the Supreme Court of India failed to rein in political thugs Tuesday. Meadows wrote ‘Confessions of a Thug’ in 1839 based on which Aamir Khan made his cocktail ‘Thugs of Hindostan’, playing possum with Meadows’ book.

As is 'five' is an odd number and one of the five justices stood up and asserted his uniqueness, he dissented! Four justices ruled Aadhaar is constitutionally fair, Justice DY Chandrachud raised his hand in class and proclaimed, “No it’s unconstitutional!” But people who went to bed Tuesday night thinking come Wednesday morning “I’ll flush the card down the toilet” found they might still have to hold on to it because there is no guarantee about fortunes. Vagaries plague man like it does the Monsoon, and he could be among the “marginalized” in no time flat.

BHOPAL: The BJP-sponsored ‘Maha Kumbh’ on 25th September was indeed a huge affair. There are varied claims about the turnout. BJP claims that more than five lakh party men came. Originally it has fixed a target of ten lakh. But despite its best efforts, the target could not be achieved. One of the factors which came in the way of achieving the target was the refusal of bus operators to make buses available. They refused to lend buses because they are already owed crores of rupees for carrying people to various programmes.

As more and more reports are coming out pointing at the personal involvement of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the selection of the Anil Ambani led Reliance Defence as against the public sector HAL as the offset partner for the Rafale project, all focus has now shifted to the Supreme Court bench led by Justice Ranjan Gogoi who will be hearing the PIL challenging the Rafale deal on October 10. By that time, Gogoi will be acting as the Chief Justice of India since he will be taking over as the CJI on October 3.

The Congress calls it the biggest defence scam of independent India. But to prove it a scam requires a money trail, kickbacks proved, like the 2G scam, meaning the CAG has to drop a bombshell with as many zeroes as it can add to the trail. A JPC will not deliver a scandal to the lap of a scam. The Rafale fighter jets will streak the sky only by end-2019 but it’s at the centre of a political dogfight in 2018.

The controversy around Rafale deal has put PMO in a tight spot. The restructuring of the deal from 126 fighter jets with co-manufacturer HAL to 36 off-the-shelf fighter jets was formulated and executed by Prime Minister Modi and his team. No one either in the government or in BJP is denying this fact. Ministry of Defence was not in the loop and was forced to take a back seat although it was the matter concerned the ministry, which has the required expertise to validate the deal whether it is best suited for the country. The PMO took the baton to redesign the deal on its own due to some reason best known to them.

Tarana Burke, a social activist and community organizer, first began using the term “Me Too” in 2006 on the Myspace social network. Then on October 15, 2017, Hollywood actress Alyssa Milano encouraged spreading the hashtag #MeToo to draw attention to sexual assault and harassment. Milano later acknowledged earlier use of the phrase by Burke.

With global economic situation vulnerable in the face of the US-China war, appreciating dollar and the currency crisis in some of the emerging economies, India needs to be careful in ensuring its macro-economic fundamentals remained strong and stable.

The outbreak of trade war between America and China is popularly attributed to the present US President Donald Trump. But its origin can be traced back to 1995, when China was denied entry to World Trade Organization (WTO).