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A fresh spate of headlines kicked in during the last 24 hours, but ‘Haiti on the brink of collapse’ said it all. Some would say the brink had already fallen off the cliff. At least Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry thought so as his aircraft circled the sky above the tarmac and armed gangs waited below to get hold of him. Henry was chosen interim Prime Minister in 2021, but clung on and wouldn’t make way for a duly elected leader.

He opened the door to realism on screen in Pather Panchali watching which a teary-eyed audience wondered how such a superb human document could emanate with the barest of equipment. Their surprise could be condoned owing to their ignorance of the skills of Bansi Chandragupta, a mind overflowing with ideas. The great art director slipped on to the mantle of greatness with his debut film.

Thousands of peace activists marched and more than a dozen were arrested in demonstrations against Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government this weekend. Opponents of Netanyahu and “his” war gathered for protests in at least 30 locations across Israel, including in Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Be’er Sheva, Jerusalem, Umm al-Fahem, and more.

BJP suffered serious political tremors having epicentre in Haryana on Tuesday which broke the NDA and the chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar had to resign. It’s a serious political development in the country at a time when BJP and PM Narendra Modi have been seeking third term in the Lok Sabha election 2024. BJP had won all 10 seats from the state in Lok Sabha election 2019, but this development has made retaining these seats highly uncertain.

The seven day session of the China’s National People’s Congress ended on Monday in Beijing with a call for mobilizing the resources of the country for the building of a robust economy based on high tech and AI. There was the customary declaration about the more closer unity of the people under the Communist Party’s leadership with President Xi Jinping at the core.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act seeks to put on a fast-track Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians—but not Muslims—who migrated to India on or before December 31, 2014, because of religious persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The law was passed by the Lok Sabha on December 9, 2019, and Rajya Sabha only two days later.

The gloves are off. Overruling possibilities of a poll tie up with Congress, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee announced the names of all the 42 candidates of her party for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections thereby stealing a march on BJP, CPI(M) and Congress, political rivals all.

While the disintegration of the INDIA bloc in Bengal has enthused the rightist forces, the delay in announcing the final silhouette of seat-sharing in Bihar has disheartened the centrist and secular forces. It is the unpleasant development in Bengal that has turned them sceptical.

The run-up to General Elections 2024 has moved into its final lap with the rules of engagement largely undemarcated. Excepting one that India’s largest “minority” will have little room for even random acts of defiance. The Modi government has played its ace-in-the-hole and will not retract. The BJP’s programme to wrap up Hindu votes has got a leg-up and no amount of defiance from the opposite camp will work.

There are reasons for India to be satisfied with the outcome of the just concluded World Trade Organisation ministerial, the 13th ministerial conference that ended in Abu Dhabi last week. India was represented by its Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal. Though there was no major achievement at the ministerial where decisions are taken by consensus by the member countries, India should be satisfied as there were no adverse decisions for India in the election year.