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On November 3, 2023, New Delhi woke up to a thick layer of toxic smog, as IQ Air a Swiss-based air quality technology company, specializing in pollution and monitoring natural resources put the city’s air quality index (AQI) at611 in the ‘hazardous’ category. A reading of 0-50is considered good. Anything between 400 and 500is unhealthy. Schools across the city have been shuttered and construction activity halted as the city was declared the world’s most polluted city. Although this is a recurring annual event in North India (now joined by Mumbai) at the beginning of winter, both Union and state governments are resorting to short-term measures instead of finding long-term solutions.

The world was awakened a month ago to the deadliest attack Israel has ever faced. Operationally, Israel was responding to an attack by Hamas, the organisation that governs the Gaza Strip, by conducting operations within the Palestinian territory. The second month of the Israeli-Hamas confrontation is about to begin. According to Israeli data released on October 7, the massacre in Israel claimed 1,400 lives - in a nation of slightly over 9 million people. The majority of the victims were civilians, killed at a rave in the desert and their homes close to the Gaza Strip border. The country was split between grief, rage, and protests. Regarding the 240 persons, not just Israelis, who were abducted and carried into the Gaza Strip by terrorists, there hasn't been any news for a month. A female soldier was freed during a raid, and four hostages have been set free.

INDIA, the anti-BJP alliance, seems to be going downhill in West Bengal even as next year's Lok Sabha elections are inching closer. It is difficult nay a well nigh impossible political proposition now for the three INDIA alliance partners namely Congress, CPI(M) and Trinamool Congress to find common ground in the state before Lok Sabha polls.

Dhruba Narayan Ghosh, known as D N Ghosh, the young official who played the leading role in preparing the draft of the ordinance on bank nationalisation issued on July19, 1969, passed away in Kolkata on November 6. He was 95. Originally, a member of the Indian Audit and Accounts Service (IAAS), Ghosh was the chairman of the State Bank of India from 1985 to 1989 and later as chairman of Larsen & Toubro fought and defeated the Ambanis who were bent on taking over this premier engineering and construction company of the country.

One of the ways federalism and the powers of the elected state legislatures are being undermined, is by governors sitting over the bills passed by the legislatures without taking any decision regarding them.

It is difficult to believe that there has been no listed ‘code-of-conduct’ for the directly elected representatives of Lok Sabha since the country held its first general elections between October 21, 1951 and February 21, 1952. Paradoxically though, Lok Sabha has an ethics committee with the members remaining in the dark about the things or acts that are clearly prescribed as unethical for them. The first ethics committee in Lok Sabha was constituted as late as on May 16, 2000 by the late GMC Balayogi of the Telugu Desam Party. Lok Sabha is yet to come out with a code-of-conduct for its members and a declaration of members’ business interests on the lines of those existing for Rajya Sabha members.

Despite pledges by 151 national governments to achieve net-zero emission by phasing out fossil fuels production, the world is set to double its production by 2030. A new report from the UN environment agency (UNEP) has warned that global coal production would continue to increase at least until 2030, while oil and gas production will continue growing until at least 2050, and their demand would peak this decade, even without new policies.

New Delhi: Defender Preeti was Thrusday named captain of the 18-member Indian team for the Women’s Junior World Cup to be held from 29th November to 10th December in Santiago, Chile.

The death of a horse, ironically named Voice of Reason, has erupted into widespread bemoaning what we humans are doing to the environment and our insensitivity to nature and other sentient beings.

The national elections in Bangladesh are scheduled to be held in January 2024. The Shiekh Hasina-led Awami League will try to continue its uninterrupted stint in power since 2009. The united opposition led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, whose top leader, Khaleda Zia, is serving a 17-year jail term since 2018 on corruption charges, is demanding a fair election under a neutral government.