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Once again, the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has proved that his bête noire Narendra Modi could not match his political craftsmanship and administrative acumen. Though the middle class bhakts of Modi claim that he has perfect understanding of the time, when to strike and how to mutilate his opponent, the Tuesday move of Nitish to release the socio-economic data of caste census sends a clear message that he has more incisive understanding of the importance of both inclusiveness as well as political timing.

As Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha Election campaigns reach its mid-way, with only a week left for campaigning, Congress seems to have emerged even stronger than previously expected just one week ago, or even likely to perform better than in the last election held in 2018.

The Bharatiya Janata Party despairs that the opposition INDI-Alliance is dividing Hindus into caste to rob the BJP a chance at victory in the five states’ assembly elections. The moral high-ground the saffron party took by championing a casteless Hindu society, however, does not fetch votes in enough numbers to win elections. Besides, the caste-virus is impossible to eradicate. So it does not come as a surprise that the BJP has shed its moral and ethical skin and is hyperventilating from which caste should the next Telangana Chief Minister come from?

Former bureaucrat Wajahat Habibullah, while serving as director of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie, called up his school friend, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, saying that he was sending to him a freshly-minted IAS officer, who also writes movies script, an interest they all shared. Tamil Nadu born V K Pandian was initially the Punjab cadre. But when he got married to his batch-mate Sujata, who was from Odisha, Habibullah suggested an inter-cadre transfer, and Pandian, got his first posting in 2002.

Feeling the heat from a slew of corruption charges and more than 10 of its leaders behind the bars, a brainstorming session is on within the Trinamool Congress to reboot it's election game plan for next year's Lok Sabha polls. The strategy will be two pronged namely to whip up an agitation demanding the Centre pay the state government its share of development funds together with alleging biased investigation against central probe agencies by highlighting instances of several senior BJP leaders whose assets have increased disproportionately not being brought under the sleuths' scanner.

The problem with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has been his own overblown ego. He treats himself as the most astute politician possessing the highest order of intellect and wisdom. He also nurtures the feeling that no other politician could read his mind and make out of his future moves.

Contestants arrayed in the electoral battlefield of Rajasthan is almost clear. The Congress and the BJP are engaged in a bitter, closer, no holds barred contest than expected earlier. Hitherto sidelined BJP leader and former CM Vasundhara Raje has come back to the centrestage, while challenges go on multiplying for the Congress led by CM Ashok Gehlot, the latest being ED raids against Congress leaders and their associates.

Aam Aadmi Party convener Arvind Kejriwal is bound for prison. The Delhi Chief Minister is reconciled to his fate. The enforcement directorate will question him, arrest him and put him behind bars, period. There are no two ways about it. Kejriwal has convinced himself and he has also convinced his flock of Delhi MLAs, including his Council of Ministers, that what will be, will be. In fact, Kejriwal cannot avoid prison is the buzz in AAP circles of Delhi and Punjab.

The Chairman of Infosys Shri N R Narayana Murthy seems to have forgotten the popular poem that was taught to us during school days ‘The Cry of the Children’, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, dedicated to the condition of children in England who were made to clean chimneys and work for long hours in hazardous industries. As a result many would catch serious diseases and eventually die an early death. The poem examines children's manual labour forced upon them by their employers. It was published in August 1843 in Blackwood's Magazine.

Increasing secret business donations to political parties to help fight state and general elections threaten to harm India’s democratic system. The practice protects the anonymity of contributors. If France, one of the world’s most vibrant democracies, can ban political donations by business corporations, why do political parties in India need to raise election funds from undisclosed business barons? Business funding of political parties in India is increasing by leaps and bounds. Introduced by the government in 2018 as part of the finance bill in Lok Sabha, the electoral bonds are allowing business corporations to anonymously donate large sums of money to political parties, mostly those in power in both the states and the Centre.