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Pakistan has accused India, its long-standing enemy, of conducting unlawful killings within that country’s borders. It claimed having “evidence” of links between “Indian agents” and the assassination of two terrorists. This accusation comes at a time when there is a growing worry that the recent increase in the ongoing indirect conflict could jeopardize the fragile peace between the two countries that has held for the past three years. These accusations have grown more strident after reports last year about alleged Indian plots to hire people for murder in the United States and Canada.

Finance Nirmala Sitharaman’s interim budget speech sounded like a well-crafted compendium of compliments to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was as though she was singing her swan song, and an ode to the greatness of her mentor, rather than on what the government planned to do in the days ahead. It also had a well-disguised appeal for votes in the 2024 elections.

The interim budget presented on February 1 is a hopeful document, pinning its faith on the continued buoyancy of the Indian economy.

Even before this June’s elections to the European parliament, the EU has lost its center. It seems the bloc can no longer count on the EU-wide liberal political group, known as Renew, as the needle of the scales.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s sixth budget turned out to be an out and out election and political document. But it has still not sunk in fully that this could be Sitharaman’s last budget unless her “I’ll be back in July” is like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie ‘Terminator’. The bodybuilder-turned-actor-turned-Governor did say "I'll Be Back" in the movie and kept his promise, too. Will Nirmala Sitharaman and her boss Prime Minister Narendra Modi also do a Terminator on the poor folks of India?

Interim Union Budget 2024-25 for railways neither generated much hope for betterment of railways operations nor services to its commuters, though Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced three major economic railway corridor programmes to be implemented, and 40,000 normal bogies to be converted to the Vande Bharat standard.

The interim budget 2024-25 presented ahead of the General elections in April-May is slightly different from previous interim budgets in the sense it made no major tax announcements keeping in line with the convention. What is significant is that the budget speech was short, less than an hour, and that it avoided populism as usually is the practice in the foreseeable past to get some political mileage to the ruling dispensation in the ensuing elections. But this time Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has done well to avoid such indulgence. It also perhaps reflects the confidence of the Modi government to come back to power for the third consecutive term. There was smacking of this arrogance when Sitharaman said that the government will announce its detailed development agenda when the full budget is presented in July after returning to power.

There has been suspicion of rigging elections by BJP government led by PM Narendra Modi, which just gained credence the way mayoral election in the Union Territory of Chandigarh was finally conducted and result declared on January 30. Votes polled for INDIA bloc’s candidates were invalidated and BJP’s candidate declared winner. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has allowed urgent listing of a plea challenging it over alleged tampering of ballot paper and other violations of the very election process.

Come February 8, Pakistan goes for the national elections to elect a new Parliament . But the run up to the day of reckoning has turned out to be a lacklustre affair with marked similarities and some differences with similar previous electoral occasions.

The timing of US and Israeli allegations that United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff participated in Hamas’ October 7 attack on the Jewish state was hardly coincidental.