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The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has published a series of orders on April 1, 2025 allowing hike in essential medicines, other drugs, and medical equipment. Prices of essential drugs have been allowed to increase by 1.74 per cent in 2025, as against 0.005 per cent in 2024. The last five years have witnessed sharp rise in prices of essential drugs which were increased by 1.88 per cent, in 2020; 10.76 per cent in 2021; 10.76 per cent in 2022; and 12.12 per cent in 2023, making the prices already unaffordable for the common people.

BHOPAL: Both BJP and Congress have decided to take several steps to streamline their organization. BJP has decided to launch "Gaon Chalo Basti Chalo Abhiyan (Let us go to villages and communities) from April 9 to April 12. April 6 is Party's foundation day. On this day party's flag will be unfurl on party members house. On the same day party's one lakh active members will hold meetings in every booth. In the gaon chalo abhiyan every ordinary member has been asked between April 9 and April 12 will learn party's history, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Welfare Programme on April 14 party will celebrate Dr. Ambedkar's birthday.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala has, once again, blazed a new trail by deciding to constitute a commission for the elderly, the first of its kind in the country.

If in the United States, the world’s second largest federal democracy, the number of seats in the House of Representatives could remain capped at 435 since 1913, there is no reason to justify the latest delimitation exercise to freshly fix the number of seats and boundaries of territorial constituencies in each state of India for the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies in keeping with the population growth. The country is now going through a census exercise after a gap of several years. In fact, India should be more concerned about how to contain its population growth and make its legislatures truly contributive to the electorate. Two years ago, India surpassed China as the world’s most populated country. This is despite the fact that China is nearly three times larger than India in terms of land mass. Ideally, India should focus on how to control the population size to benefit the public from the country’s real time economic growth after the current census exercise. The delimitation exercise should take a back seat.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] begins its five day session of 24th Congress on April 2 at Madurai in Tamil Nadu. The 24th congress, held after every three years is expected to frame the road map of the party for the next three years till the 25th congress which is scheduled for 2028. The intervening years since the last party congress witnessed the holding of the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 and many assembly polls to the state assemblies. In the next three years, the most important political event for the party is the holding of assembly elections in Kerala in April/May 2026 since the party is in power in the state heading the Left Democratic front government. Further, the year 2025 is the centenary year of RSS and in this year as also in the next three years, the Hindutva forces led by RSS strive to advance many steps forward to achieve their objective of establishing Hindu Rashtra.

Illegal immigration from India to the United States is emerging as a significant issue between the two countries. India has one of the highest numbers of illegal immigrants in the US, with an estimated 750,000 people. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the two countries have built better relations. However, President Donald Trump's early decision to target illegal immigrants for deportation included many people from India. In his second term, Trump focuses on two main issues: sending unlawful immigrants back to their home countries and addressing reciprocal tariff policies.

UN Geneva’s Beyond Lab’s movement around ‘Beyond GDP’ has many lessons for India, the country whose ruling establishment has recently created a hype around its GDP growth. Quoting the IMF data, the government said India’s economy has reached $4.3 trillion in 2025, which was $2.1 trillion in 2015, has become fifth largest economy under PM Narendra Modi’s 10 years of rule, will surpass Japan’s GDP in few months, and could overtake Germany by 2027. What the GDP figures do not show is that India has largest number of poor in the world, and 7th largest country in wealth inequality. It is the stark example of GDP measuring development very poorly or not at all, in fact, and therefore, the country has many lessons to learn from the Beyond GDP movement.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Madurai City in Tamil Nadu is all set to host the CPI(M)’s 24th Party Congress on Wednesday, April 2. The historic city, which has witnessed many a struggle against casteism and exploitation of the poor and downtrodden, has literally turned red with thousands of party workers and leaders assembling in the city, holding aloft the red flag.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Another attempt to discredit Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his daughter Veena suffered a major setback when the Kerala High Court rejected pleas by Congress MLA Mathew Kuzhalnadan and late RTI activist Girish Babu for a probe against the CM.

Despite strict laws banning manual scavenging, sanitation workers across India continue to lose their lives while cleaning sewers and septic tanks. The situation is particularly alarming in Madhya Pradesh, where 16 such deaths have been recorded between 2021 and 2024. According to the Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA), a national movement advocating for sanitation workers' rights, these deaths are not isolated incidents but part of a larger, systemic failure across the country. The organization has condemned these fatalities and is demanding immediate government intervention to prevent further loss of life and hold those responsible accountable.