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The Indian television soap opera industry — once the undisputed emperor of household entertainment — is now fighting the most difficult survival battle in its 40-year history. From the days when entire streets fell silent during Ramayan and Mahabharat on Doordarshan to the age of algorithm-driven binge watching on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and ZEE5, Indian television has undergone a dramatic economic and cultural transformation.

Annoyed by the voice of the voiceless cockroaches on Social Media platform X, the Union Government of India led by PM Narendra Modi got their account banned in the country. Thanks to the Chief Justice of India Surya Kant’s one of the comments on May 15, 2026, that had triggered the voice, that was ultimately suppressed by the government that goes on trumpeting the world over that India is the mother of democracy.

More than three months have passed since the historic general elections in Bangladesh on February 12 this year leading to the installation of the BNP government in the country headed by Tarique Rahman. PM Narendra Modi’s warm congratulations to the Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman and later Indian external affairs minister Dr. S. Jaishankar’s talks with the visiting Bangladesh foreign minister Khalilur Rahman last month brought about some easing of the earlier bitter relations. But unfortunately, this gesture on the part of India has not been immediately followed.

India’s rupee is not merely depreciating. It is sending a warning flare about the structural weaknesses of an economy that spent two decades celebrating growth while postponing the harder questions of economic resilience, industrial depth, and external vulnerability.

Geopolitical conflicts affect the lives of people who hardly have any role in initiating the conflict. The ruling class of conflicting nations engage in wars and the burden of the disruptions caused in the process is asymmetrically imposed upon common people. The national leaders of Israel and the US decided to attack Iran out of desperation as both could sense a decline of their control over the Middle East. According to official statements it was to salvage the Iranian people from the tyranny of Islamic rule. They didn’t succeed. Instead, the US and Iran are caught in a quagmire that does not have an immediate solution.

The Indian government today is trying to present the danger arising from the growing tensions in West Asia and the Hormuz Strait as the biggest cause of the economic crisis. An atmosphere is being created as if India’s economic difficulties have suddenly arisen because of some external war. Whereas the truth is that the crisis visible today is the result of the economic and strategic policies of the last one decade. Hormuz has only fully exposed this crisis; the real crisis is that economic model which has made India import-dependent, corporate-centred, and strategically weak.

NEW YORK: After kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January and killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the following month, President Donald Trump declared “Cuba is next.” With the unsealing of a criminal indictment against former Cuban President Raúl Castro on May 20, the administration in Washington is preparing to make good on its threat.

The joint declaration made by Chinese President Xi Jinping and the visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin after their summit in Beijing on May 20 has major ramifications on the global geopolitics in the context of the present unilateral actions of the U.S. President Donald Trump including the launching of war against Iran which still is m not over.

Uttar Pradesh became the hottest state in India on May 20, 2026 with Banda earning a distinction of the hottest city in the world with 48.2°C. Whether this affected the minds of the political leaders is not known, but their statements were hot, that made Uttar Pradesh the hottest political place in the country. Samajwadi Party Supremo Akhilesh Yadav identified himself with cockroaches and posted “CJP vs BJP”. Rahul Gandhi attacked BJP leaders PM Narendra Modi, Union Minister of Home Amit Shah, and RSS calling them traitor, while BJP leaders attacked Rahul as anarchist. All these have started at a time when Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly elections are to be held within 18 months from now.

The trouble with the post truth world is that it has an expiry date. The truth can be glossed over for some finite length of time, not perpetually. Truth eventually triumphs. It seems that we have reached that hour of reckoning. Indications were pronounced, coming from the Prime Minister himself, when he in no uncertain terms asserted the need for Indian citizens to ‘tighten their belts’ – an ‘austerity package of sorts’!