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Rural India limited the Bharatiya Janata Party to 240 seats in the Lok Sabha. And but for the "NDA allies", Narendra Modi wouldn't have become Prime Minister for a third time. The BJP now depends on its partners for the simple majority in Parliament. The BJP lost a third of its rural parliamentary constituencies in 2024, reflecting acute rural distress. MSP, Agniveer and high unemployment, all of these contributed to the BJP's post-poll distress.

India’s National Capital Territory Delhi is running a shortage of water to the tune of 50 MGD (million gallon per day). The Water and Tanker Mafia are minting money. People are undergoing unprecedented suffering. Political parties are trying to derive political mileage by indulging in blame-game. The Supreme Court of India has intervened but the water crisis isn't going away. With no end in sight before the monsoon arrives.

In normal circumstances, except for a few specifically Bangladesh-related issues, Dhaka-based leaders/analysts do not always delve deep into Indian political developments. However, the outcome and trends of Indian general elections naturally generate considerable public interest and media-sponsored debates in Dhaka and other Bangladeshi cities. Now, after a new coalition headed by Narendra Modi has taken charge in India, Bangladeshis are keen to learn how bilateral relations will go from here on.

This might be stretching it a bit, but the presence of two daughters of note at the swearing-in ceremony of Narendra Modi as India's Prime Minister for the third time in a row led to talk that their attendance must have been more than what the eye could see. Especially, Nepali Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal's daughter Ganga Dahal.

By far the biggest takeaway from the 2024 general elections for India is that the ruling coalition will no longer be able to amend the Constitution and convert the country from a secular State to a Hindu Rashtra. During the election campaign, the Prime Minister of India memorably said, “Ram is my idea of India.” The people of India have denied him the opportunity to see his dream come true through an amendment to the Constitution.

A familiar scene played out in the city council chambers of Richmond, California, on May 22, 2024. For the last twenty years, since members of the anti-Chevron Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) first got elected to the council, any measure before that body affecting the city’s largest employer and business taxpayer has been hotly debated.

Indian National Congress (INC) is heading for another very interesting political battle for the Rajya Sabha, where it had just escaped a loss of the post of the Leader of Opposition. With two of its members in the Upper House recently elected to the Lok Sabha, INC's strength in the upper house reduced to 26, just one more than the required number of 25 to hold the post.

The overall results of the Lok Sabha election are certainly a setback for the BJP. Getting 240 seats, it failed to achieve the absolute majority it had gained in the 2014 and 2019 elections. Narendra Modi is now heading a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition government with parties like the Telugu Desam Party and the Janata Dal (United) providing the numbers for a majority in the Lok Sabha.

Shaken by their leader Nitish Kumar prostrating before Prime Minister Narendra Modi and making an uncouth retreat from his stand, which he had taken before leaving for Delhi to discuss JD(U)’s share in the Union Cabinet, a section of senior JD(U) leaders are contemplating jumping the sinking ship that the JD(U) has become. These leaders are yet to make out the real reason for Nitish's surrender to Modi but they're not happy souls.

BJP victory would soon turn into a reality and it was no illusion — that was what Modi and Shah told the investors. But the crash came at the most unexpected moment and led to a whopping Rs 30 lakh crore loss on the day the Lok Sabha election results were announced. It was a nexus of government, media and corporate that devastated retail investors in the stock market. Weeks before election results, the advice to people came from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah to "buy stocks before June 4", suggesting that the market would surge. They claimed to have known that there could not be otherwise.