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This year’s budget was a ‘vote of account’ which is a provision in the budgetary process that allows the government to obtain the approval of the parliament for essential expenditures for a limited period before the full budget is present. With Mr. Nitish Kumar, joining the National Democratic Alliance, there is a high probability that the incumbent party led by Mr Narendra Modi will return to power. It seems that the FM also believes that, and therefore this vote of account budget was more ‘rational’ and not that ‘popular’ from the standpoint of economics. Let me explain further.

Lal Krishna Advani, the ironman of the BJP whose Ramjanmabhoomi movement turned the construction of Ram Mandir into the basic ideology of the saffron ecosystem, has been honoured with the prestigious gift of the Bharat Ratna. Coming right after the inauguration of the Ram Temple, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to reward the once prominent old guard, after sidelining him for a decade, came at a crucial juncture when the country will be going to polls in April-May to elect a new government.

MLAs and MPs are placed such that they can make tonnes of money by shifting allegiance, the money credited to their bank accounts, like nowadays when the focus is on Jharkhand and Bihar MLAs fleeing BJP depredations with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Delhi minister with multiple portfolios, Atishi Marlena, also alleging that AAP MLAs were being targeted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party.

The Houthis keep surprising some of the strongest armies in the world. They are still launching missiles at ships they think are connected to the US, UK, or Israel, and even at some that are not. The Houthis have greatly affected worldwide trade, making ships go thousands of miles out of their way. They are not scared off by many air strikes from the US on their missile sites, and they have promised to strike back against US and UK properties.

Artificial intelligence has made tremendous strides in recent years—from beating human champions at chess to revolutionizing self-driving cars and setting up life-like virtual assistants. Now, AI is putting its creative hat on and venturing into the world of content generation. While AI shows great promise for automating routine, and mundane, writing tasks and producing large volumes of content, its use also raises important questions about originality, quality and its impact on jobs. The question whether—or even when—AI will eventually replace human intervention in writing is being hotly debated even as we write this piece.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There is no change in the Budget script as far as Kerala is concerned. It has been an unredeeming tale of severe neglect from the Union Government, repeated ad nauseum over the years.

In Assam, bad news continues for the opposition: little tangible progress has been made in pre-election seat sharing talks among major parties opposing the ruling Bharatiya Janata party(BJP), as they desperately struggle to build a united anti-Saffron front, in recent weeks.

The irony of Middle Eastern geopolitics is that Israel makes it increasingly difficult for US President Joe Biden to support it, while Iran strengthens domestic US anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli hardliners. The hardliners are emboldened by the failure of calibrated US strikes in response to numerous attacks on US forces in the Middle East and on shipping in the Red Sea to deter Iranian-backed militia groups in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud’s call for an end to the ‘adjournment culture’ in the functioning of the courts could not have come a day sooner. “In the near future, we must address structural issues affecting the judiciary such as the pendency of cases, our archaic procedures, and the culture of adjournments,” he said while delivering an address at the inauguration ceremony of the upcoming year-long celebrations marking the diamond jubilee of the Supreme Court.

Reduction in the total allocations for Union Ministry of Labour and Employment and also workers’ social security in the Interim Union Budget 2024-25 has revealed PM Narendra Modi government’s anti-labour stance, an allegation that has been labelled by the joint platform of Central Trade Unions (CTUs) since the passage of four controversial labour laws in the Parliament of India in 2019 and 2020.