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Italy's Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, has announced the end of her nearly 10-year relationship with her partner, Andrea Giambruno, following explicit off-air remarks he made on a TV show. Giambruno, a TV host, faced controversy after his comments, including flirtatious remarks to a female colleague and lewd references to group sex, were broadcast on Striscia La Notizia.

Last week, the Financial Times quoted a “senior European Union official” calling the escalating war in the Middle East “a gift from heaven” for Vladimir Putin. He suggested that Western governments’ support for Israel is turning Global South countries into Moscow’s allies. As an unnamed Arab official quoted in the same FT piece put it, “If you describe cutting off water, food and electricity in Ukraine as a war crime, then you should say the same thing about Gaza.”

Pablo Ruiz Picasso cannot be pinned down. Even as his 142 nd birth anniversary passed by early this week, legions of his critics, detractors and of course his fans have been unable to categorise him. The reason is not difficult to see. There is so much of his works that it cannot be done.

BHOPAL: As the electioneering picks up heat, political parties are using abusing language against each other. The BJP calls Congress leaders Ravana, the Congress too pays in the same coin. The position is worst at local level.

How the Bharatiya Janata Party has transformed the upcoming assembly polls into Modi Vs. Congress by sidelining state-level leaders is the flavour of this election season running up to and right into general elections 2024. The fact of the matter is there’s no doubt that it is Congress Vs. BJP in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. In Telangana, it has gravitated to Congress Vs. Bharat Rashtra Samithi and in Mizoram it’s Congress Vs. Mizo National Front. So the question boils down to why is the BJP central command pushing to make it a Modi Vs. Congress contest, and why state-level leaders are being sidelined?

All fascistic outfits have one common characteristic: they reject outright all evidence that goes against the narrative they spin; and the Hindutva elements in power in India are no exception. Their narrative presents India as the fastest growing economy in the world where the people never had it so good; but if evidence collected by international agencies or even by the government’s own agencies shows otherwise, then that evidence must be wrong. The credo of India’s fascistic Hindutva outfit is simple: the reality is what Modi says, if evidence shows otherwise then it must be wrong, and, most likely, the product of a nefarious terrorist conspiracy.

Her acting is a combination of vivacity which gels completely with her natural acting style. This has earned Aparna Sen a place of honour among the greats of Bengali cinema. Here is a heroine turned director whose co-actors have ranged from Uttam Kumar, Soumitra Chattopadhyay to Shatrughan Sinha and Amitabh Bachchan (during her brief foray in Hindi filmdom) but unlike many of her more famous peers, she was never overshadowed by her male lead actor. The maverick film actor cum director turned 78 on October 25.

In Mizoram, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) faces its most difficult political battle in the coming Assembly elections because of its irrefutable failure to control the worst ethnic riots in neighbouring Manipur state. Its main political backers in the state, the Mizo National Front (MNF) will not participate in a joint political campaign with the BJP, after what has happened in Manipur.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A concerted attempt by the Congress in Kerala to drive a wedge between the CPI(M) and the Muslim community has come a cropper.

In October 2012, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that the Nobel Peace Prize would be awarded to the European Union since it had “for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe.” A decade later, a new war on the continent divided Europe — and Russia had just begun bombing civilian targets.