View Articles

On January 1, 2024, a labour court in Dhaka, Bangladesh sentenced Grameen Telecom chairman and controversial Nobel Laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus and three others to six-month jail in a case filed against them for violating labour law. Judge Sheikh Merina Sultana of Dhaka's 3rd Labour Court pronounced the judgment in presence of all the four convicts.

Padma Deskit, Ladakh's first female surgeon, wanted to be a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, but her hopes were dashed after his father was diagnosed with cancer. As the eldest child Deskit prioritised family and returned to Ladakh.

2024 is almost certainly a general election year in United Kingdom.. Westminster rumours of a May poll are rife, but the autumn remains the more likely option for beleaguered premier Rishi Sunak.

The electoral chances of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party have faced significant challenges. However, recent opinion polls indicate a resurgence in Liberal support ahead of July 1, 2024 election. According to analysts, Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative Party leader, appears to have played a role in this shift, with his actions alienating voters and pushing them back into the Liberal fold. Poilievre's confrontational approach towards journalists and his party's opposition to trade deals have made him less acceptable to past Liberal supporters.

The grand Ram Temple in Ayodhya is all dressed up for the inauguration on January 22 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is fulfilling a longstanding dream of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar.

EVM concerns have cropped up again, because the older Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are still in use in large numbers, newer EVMs that come with Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trial (VVPAT) paper record are not comprehensive enough, and even all the VVPATs are not counted to match the actual votes polled. Tampering and vulnerability are therefore not ruled out, and even some time back a research paper has found “irregular patterns” in Lok Sabah election results 2019.

Like all his other jumlas, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pledge to ensure the women of their basic rights and protect them from oppression and torture has proved to be yet another empty promise. Had he really been concerned and committed to protect the honour and prestige of women, by now the message would have reached across the line, and the spiritual BJP leaders who are not tired of reminding the common people of their commitment to Hindu culture, its tradition, moral values and ethics, would not have dared to rape a girl student, that too inside the campus of Banaras Hindu University, a Hindutva bastion, in the heart of Varanasi, the Lok Sabha constituency of the self-proclaimed ‘vishwaguru’ Modi.

Watch out. Will Maharashtra Lok Sabha elections throw up surprises? The state dangles like a ripe fruit for the taking. Everybody is just waiting. The alliances, they seem they’re many. What happened to the Maha Vikas Aghadi, and did the BJP and the Shinde Shiv Sena combine have a name before Ajit Pawar split the Nationalist Congress Party and joined the BJP-Shinde Shiv Sena combine? Now, there is the INDI-Alliance and the BJP-Shiv Sena-Ajit Pawar group eyeing the spoils from the 2024 general elections with neither alliance instilling trust and confidence.

The war on Gaza, which has been going on for nearly three months since ‘Operation Aqsa Deluge’, has revealed that the divisions that exist within the factions that sparked it will be the most prominent aspect of the scene when it is over, provided they continue to play a role. The differences in opinion that exist between the Iranian position and that of Hamas about the motives and objectives of this war are brought to the forefront in recent days.

It seems strange to routinely wish everyone a happy new year while there is so much pain and suffering in the world.