View Articles

Robert J Oppenheimer was inspired by it, T.S. Eliot was fascinated by the slokas and now an independent candidate aspiring for the White House revealed he was egged on to put a fight for the top job by the Bhagawat Gita.

Skies are clear and the heat unbearable. Will people step outdoors to vote? The first phase saw some reluctance. One more lacklustre phase and Prime Minister Narendra will have nothing new to coin. But voting is being tied to the ‘mangalsutra’ and it ain’t different in Maharashtra where Uddhav Thackeray is under pressure to prove his Hindutva credentials.

With second phase of election on April 26, Lok Sabha election on all 25 constituencies in Rajasthan will conclude. In every constituency, the Congress has offered BJP tough electoral battles, which made none less than Prime Minister Narendra Modi to lose his cool, who out of frustration started communal tirade against the Congress during the second phase of election campaigns. In such a close electoral battle, we are bound to see the state bringing up surprises, and hence the certainty expressed about BJP’s winning all the seats has given way to uncertainties.

Deterrence is straightforward! It means stopping the enemy from taking action by threatening military force. The US, with its powerful global military, should easily be able to deter Iran, which has outdated military equipment, including warships and fighter jets older than the first Moon landing.

It was May Day when workers all over the world were waking up to the reality that they too have rights, as a class. For us in India, outcome was All India Trade Union Congress that came into existence in 1920, with Lala Lajpat Rai as president. Capitalism had started settling in. Even in agrarian sector, it had entered forcing the peasants to slog on their own fields like agri workers with a pittance of return not even enough to meet the basics. Industries were coming up in urban areas like in Bombay, there were cotton mills and in Calcutta, jute mills and so were workers, slogging for sixteen to sometime even twenty hours without a right of their own.

For the sake of record, the Election Commission has said that it is examining the complaint made against the speech made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally in Rajasthan where he had said that if Congress is elected to power at the Centre, it would mean redistribution of people’s property, land and gold among Muslims. If past instances are anything to go by, the commission’s assertion is like a line drawn on water.

People gathered to hear PM Narendra Modi in Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh on April 22, just two days before the end of election campaigns for the second phase of Lok Sabha election 2024, were surprised when they heard him lowering the pitch from the high pedestal of BJP’s sloganeering “Abki baar, 400 paar” to merely “Abki baar, Modi Sarkar.” With equal surprise people received it reported in the media. Perhaps Narendra Modi has realized by now that his target is failing, despite the first win of the party from Surat in Gujarat unopposed, after rejection of nomination of Congress candidate and withdrawal of nomination by all others triggering a great controversy.

KOLKATA: The Second phase of 18th Lok Sabha elections starting on April 26 will have a strange commonality with the first phase in West Bengal. Just like the April 19 elections, it remains to be seen whether the three constituencies represented by BJP MPs in the second phase stand their ground or fall to Trinamool Congress or INDIA coalition's onslaught when the results are declared on June 4.

LUCKNOW: The visible anger in powerful Thakur-Rajput community which constitutes 10 per cent of total votes in the population of Uttar Pradesh can spoil chances of BJP candidates in eight seats of Western UP going to poll in second phase on April 26.

Narendra Modi “spreading fear” among Hindu women by claiming that the Congress would not even spare their mangalsutra if it comes to power, as well as maligning Dr Manmohan Singh for his reflection on share of power to the minorities, such as Muslims, are the top headlines this election season. A couple of days back, Union defence minister Rajnath Singh while addressing a rally in West Bengal, openly challenged that no mother’s son can dare to repeat the incident of Sandeshkhali if the BJP government is formed in the state.