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BHOPAL: Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan always been described as “Ghoshna Veer” (as one who only makes promises but never cares to implement them). But this time it proved wrong. Eight months before the assembly elections Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced an allowance of Rs. 1000 per month for Ladli Behnas – more than 1.3 crore women – close to the polls, and cooking gas subsidy proved to be a master stroke by Shivraj. The two percent rise in women voting tipped the scale.

Beginning with resurgence in Karnataka by mid-May after being able to throw BJP out of power in the state, overconfidence of the Congress leadership shot up too high to perceive some ground realities beneath their feet. They continued with their idea that “resurgent Congress does not need” INDIA alliance partners to win Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan. They recklessly fired political missiles not only missing their chief target BJP, but also exposed their own vulnerabilities where it hurt the most. Ultimately they lost power in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, and their dream of wresting power from the BJP in Madhya Pradesh has been shattered.

The thumping victories in the ‘Hindi Heartland’ has given a tremendous boost to the BJP going forward. In fact, it took Prime Minister Narendra Modi only hours to claim total dominance and he did not hold back from warning the Opposition to mend its ways and stop “coming in between” the people and the government's welfare schemes. With that the BJP launched its campaign for General Elections 2024.

Narendra Modi bhakts are absolutely correct in saying “Modi hai to mumkin hai” (everything possible with Modi around). Elections to the Madhya Pradesh assembly were held on November 17, thirteen days ahead of the Telangana elections. During the intervening days, political analysts and even some of the pollsters predicted a clear victory for the Congress. But suddenly after November 30 election to Telangana assembly, the narrative witnessed a major shift. Some exit polls came out with the revelation that BJP would win the MP election with majority.

There is some confusion on whether India should consider itself “Vishwaguru” or be wise and hold back on the boast? One view is why go the extra mile with the “present government’s exaggerated sense of the country’s global power and indigenous capability”, i.e., Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “macho manner” and muscular foreign policy, which has rubbed off on External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, too.

India’s unreserved opposition to China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative launched across four continents over ten years ago by President Xi Jinping with great fanfare was given vent to from time to time by powers that be, including prime minister Narendra Modi. More recently, India’s external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi found an occasion to tear to shreds the decade ago minted Chinese policy to win over the global south by promising and also funding all kinds of infrastructure projects – from roads to sea and river ports to new city development.

Spanish philosopher George Santayana didn’t have Palestine in mind when he coined the phrase, ‘history repeats itself. ‘Yet, Santayana’s maxim may apply to Hamas when comparing the group’s political evolution to the 16-year-torturous road traversed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from classification by Israel and its Western allies as a terrorist organization to establishing the Palestine Authority on Israeli-occupied Palestinian land.

The renewed escalation of the Israel-Palestine conflict is providing additional impetus for gold to climb higher levels. The yellow metal has already been trending higher over the past two months, but the end of truce between Hamas and Israeli forces, unleashing new bomb attacks and destruction of lives and properties, particularly on the Palestine side, is continuing to fuel risk aversion and investor concerns, leading to further gains in gold prices.

Government statistics released this week paint a rosy picture of the Indian economy with GDP growth clocking 7.6 per cent in the second quarter of this financial year 2023-24 on the back of strong manufacturing sector. This also strengthens India’s position as the fastest growing major economy, a position held by China for a couple of decades. The economy had grown 7.8 per cent in the first quarter of this financial year. But the next two quarters are expected to have slower growth as the full-year projections remain at 6.5 per cent for 2023-24.

A two-volume new ILO research has revealed that participation of India in Global Value Chains (GVCs) has resulted into social downgrading of the workforce, chiefly due to non-integration of labour standards into trade and investment. It is just opposite our expectation, since GVCs are a prominent feature of international trade, which should have enabled social upgrading.