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Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s sister Y S Sharmila is not what her name suggests—shy, placid… She has been a rebel after a cause, and so has done what she had set out to do, become a part of the Congress—which was her father Y S Rajasekhara Reddy’s party—with Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Gandhi family scion Rahul Gandhi welcoming her into the fold.

Argentina’s new president Javier Milei proposes to use US dollars as the currency of his country, while abolishing its central bank altogether. What is involved in this proposal is not just maintaining a fixed exchange rate between the dollar and the domestic currency, but an abolition of the domestic currency altogether. The maintenance of a fixed exchange rate does not preclude the central bank of the country printing more of the domestic currency whenever there is a demand for more domestic currency, while using an array of instruments to ensure that there is no shift to dollars from the domestic currency so that its exchange rate remains fixed; but “dollarisation” means a complete shift to dollars by abolishing both the domestic currency and the central bank that is normally entrusted with the responsibility of printing it.

On January 7, 2024, Bangladesh will hold general elections. These elections are of great importance for Bangladesh, both domestically and internationally. In the run-up to the election, Nobel Prize-winning economist Muhammad Yunus, a critic of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, was sentenced to six months in prison on charges of violating labor laws. Most people believe that this sentence was politically motivated.

It is unfortunate that the climate change and global warming are not getting the attention it deserves. Global conferences set long term goals, which are too little too late. UN convention on climate change comes out with targets year after year and latest global conference, CoP28 held in December last has again come out with some targets to achieve near net zero emission of methane and drastic reduction in use of fossil fuel by 2050. All these are fine but the question is whether the world will be liveable by then in view of massive destruction floods and droughts cause to humanity. Is global administration really serious or is it that these conferences end up as mere talking shop.

Australian by birth, John Pilger died on December 30 2023, at the age of 84. He initially rose to fame for his international reporting on the Vietnam war, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Burma, East Timor, Australia and the Middle East.

BJP has just coined this attractive slogan to its gullible constituency – Teesri Baar Modi Sarkar, ab ki baar 400 paar. Some national and international political analysts are declaring “almost an inevitability” of PM Narendra Modi’s win for the third time, supporting the first part of the slogan, while PM Modi’s supporters are going with deafening assertion of the second part of the slogan, cleverly not mentioning that out of 437 seats BJP had contested, it had lost its deposit in as many as 51 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. Thus, the second part of the slogan is just a far-fetched idea far away from the ground reality. As for the first part of the slogan, the term “almost” just veils the doubts in the very propaganda of “inevitability.”

When drone-fired missiles hit an apartment in south Beirut, killing a prominent militant leader and his associates, it signalled a new direction in Israel's conflict with Hamas.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have announced that the military operations in Gaza will continue throughout 2024. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has repeatedly stated that the war in Gaza will continue till the Hamas is totally finished. He has also stated that Israel will control the Gaza border with Egypt which would mean Israel’s de facto control over the whole of the Gaza strip.

At a time India is in advanced stage of negotiations with United Kingdom and European Union on free trade negotiations, there are warning bells to suggest trade diversions from China to India using FTAs with some of the countries.

Forensic investigations by Amnesty International’s Security Lab have come out with surprising revelations about continued and increasing use of Pegasus, a type of highly invasive spyware, developed by Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group. It has come amid an unprecedented crackdown by the Indian authorities on freedom of peaceful expression and assembly, which has had a chilling impact on civil society organizations, journalists, and activists.