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New Delhi: 20 players from the National Core Group, including Vandana Katariya, Deep Grace Ekka, Sangita Kumari, and Monika, among others, will compete for their respective teams in the 3rd a Senior Women Inter-Department Hockey National Championship which will commence on Wednesday, 15th November, in New Delhi.

Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is hard at campaigning for the Congress in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where the last legs of electioneering are at their peak. Listening to Rahul Gandhi makes it clear that he does not like it that Prime Minister Narendra Modi refuses to speak on the caste census, which is what Rahul Gandhi has in his mind these days. The 'caste census vow' is what the Congress leader keeps repeating wherever he makes a halt to make a campaign speech, whether it is in Madhya Pradesh or in Chhattisgarh. Rahul Gandhi’s earnestness shines through when he reiterates the Congress vow to get a caste census done.

In the second phase of state elections scheduled to be held on November 17, corruption has become a major issue in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. PM Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi are leading the allegation wars on behalf of BJP and Congress respectively. PM Modi alleged that ruling Congress in Chhattisgarh looted the state for the last five years, while Rahul Gandhi alleged that Madhya Pradesh has become the corruption capital of India under double engine government of BJP.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav stands exposed. His consistent harping on the claim that his ‘PDA’ formula will transform his party’s fortunes and ensure the defeat of the BJP in 2024 Lok Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh has turned him into a suspect even in the eyes of his own partymen. A section of the senior SP leaders have begun asking how Akhilesh, who had miserably failed to defeat the BJP in direct contest in the 2022 assembly elections, could claim to win 65 Lok Sabha seats fighting on two fronts in 2024.

Uniqueness of Jawaharlal Nehru whose birth anniversary is being observed in an arguably muted manner on November 14 lay in his ability to enact the modernity narrative. He was neither chary nor ashamed to accept ideas even it was of others that would take India to new highs on the wings of science and technology following the guidelines of centralised planning.

BJP has raised the flame of its communal stove in Rajasthan, right from the last date for withdrawal of nomination on November 9. Within three days it started spewing flue flames causing a considerable rise in politico-communal temperature in the state, and the ruling Congress has started feeling the heat. Electoral battle has just turned ugly occupying the front pushing the issues of peace and development in the state into the rear.

There appears to be no end to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s self-doubts as far as Madhya Pradesh is concerned. It is not just anti-incumbency of over 18 years. This is more like being paranoid. First and foremost, the complete overdependence on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking the party to victory. Two, the conviction that the state leadership on its own cannot deliver victory. So, state leaders who had taken on central roles were recalled to take centre-stage in the state. Now we’re being told that young leadership will not do, so, therefore, septuagenarians have to be foisted to win the state.

Every year, post Dussehra, Delhi loses sight of the Sun. There are many factors contributing to these nightmarish levels of air pollution. Weather, geography, local pollution (traffic, industries, etc.), agricultural practices, water security and climate change are the key factors at play.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The tension between the Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government and Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan escalated with the former moving the Supreme court against him for the second time.

Having lost hope of winning the assembly elections to the five states and haunted by the ghost of bleak prospect of coming back to power at the centre in the 2024 Lok Sabha election, RSS is seriously contemplating to resort to the design of rousing the sensibility of ultra-nationalism and the foreign bogey. Though RSS leadership is primarily concerned of the Lok Sabha election it is also intending to use it for the assembly elections in five states. Of course a belated move, first phase of voting has already taken place in Chhattisgarh, the RSS leaders nurse the feeling that even at this stage it may yield some result.