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The Narendra Modi regime is out to launch a twin assault on parliamentary democracy and federalism by implementing the slogan of `One Nation, One Election’ (ONOE). The government has announced the setting up of an eight-member committee headed by former president, Ram Nath Kovind. The terms of reference make it clear that the committee’s job is to recommend how to proceed to implement simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies, the legal and constitutional steps to be taken. The committee can be expected to do what the government wants as it has been hand-picked for the purpose and includes home minister Amit Shah.

Hosting the G20 Leaders’ Summit on September 9 and 10 in Delhi poses both a challenge and a chance for India, as it aims to navigate geopolitical tensions while strengthening its position as a representative of the Global South.

Earlier last week, just before the Mumbai meeting of the opposition grouping INDIA, talk switched to naming Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge ‘convener’ of INDIA. Then, for no apparent reason, all such talk went out the window. After a series of calculated Modi government leaks, the importance of "being Mallikarjun Kharge" appeared to limit itself to being the father of Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge. So much so, the importance of being Priyank Kharge started overlapping the importance of being Mallikarjun Kharge.

Humiliating defeat in Karnataka in May 2023 assembly elections compelled the BJP leadership to give its electoral strategy a second thought for poll bound Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, and by the time the party readjusted its strategy, the nascent INDIA alliance increased its political challenges, necessitating further change in BJP’s national electoral strategy overriding the earlier planned strategy for the Vidhan Sabha elections.

On September 9-10, the world's most influential heads of the state will meet in India for the annual G20 summit. India assumed the year-long presidency of G20 on 1st December 2022. During the last meet in Bali, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to world leaders that India would actively pursue inclusive, ambitious, and action-oriented policies throughout its G20 presidency. India has chosen the theme of "One Earth, One Family, One Future" enshrined in the ancient Sanskrit ethos of "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam". This theme embodies a holistic approach to growth with sustainability in consideration of all life forms in the development process and aligning with the imperative of protecting our Planet.

The newly formed Opposition alliance I.N.D.I.A. took a positive step last week in cementing a solid coalition in Mumbai. This decision was made during their third meeting, preceded by two previous conferences in Patna and Bengaluru. Their goal is to replicate the 1977 or 2004 scenario where the weaker Opposition won against the ruling dispensation.

INDIA alliance has a wider political bandwidth compared to the NDA in terms of reach to electorate, various sections of people, number of significant regional and national political parties, spread across the geographical regions, and experience of not only winning elections but retaining their political dominance in their respective states. Though it is advantage INDIA alliance, its constituent political parties are still betraying their old habits of harping their own cords, at a time when they actually need a unified and concerted intensive campaign strategy to approach electorate with right issues in the electoral battlefield.

India had just shaken off the chains of foreign servitude which was a dream come true for its citizens. Nationalism and several discordant voices were in the air in whose backdrop a group of young men gathered at Paradise Cafe, a cafeteria near the junction of Hazra Road and Russa Road in the then Calcutta and gave vent to their search for new ideas to shake up the cultural milieu of the partitioned Bengal.

NITI Aayog has recently come out with a poverty index, which said 13.5 crore Indians escaped multi-dimensional poverty in five years and that there was a steep decline in the number of multi-dimensionally poor from 24.85 per cent to 14.96 per cent between 2015-16 and 2019-21. Rural areas saw the fastest decline in poverty from 32.59 per cent to 19.28 per cent. The report claimed that India was on track to achieve sustainable development goals ahead of the 2030 deadline.

The recent exercise to — ostensibly “improve the education system and make it rational” — undertaken by the Sangh Parivar, precisely the RSS, in West Bengal makes it obvious that the saffronistas are determined to completely destroy the modern mode of education in the state.