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On October 15, Iran delivered a strong public ultimatum to its longstanding adversary, Israel, cautioning that if the Israeli assault on Gaza continued, they would be compelled to respond, as stated by their foreign minister. However, a few hours later, Iran's U.N. mission adopted a more conciliatory stance, assuring the global community that their military forces would only become involved in the conflict if Israel targeted Iranian interests or citizens.

After eighteen days of the surprise attack by Hamas on Israel, the return onslaught against Gaza strip continues. The Hamas attack resulted in the killing of 1400 Israelis and abducting of more than 200 others, leading the Israeli govt. to declare war on the Palestinians in Gaza and even in West Bank to end all the terror attacks on Israel. Actually those have been going for decades. Benjamin Netanyahu vows to wipe out Hamas from the face of the earth, but it is the same man who told his Likud colleagues in March 2019 - "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas. This is a part of our strategy - to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is in a bind. He is caught between public support for the Palestinians, and for Hamas in significant quarters, opponents painting him as a Western and Israeli lackey, and the need to not be seen as enabling a militant organization that brutally targets civilians.

Can law be in someone’s blood? If so, it must run in the veins of the Chandrachud clan. Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud’s grandfather and uncle were lawyers. His father was the 16th and longest—serving Chief Justice of the country, and both his sons are lawyers. Abhnav is in Mumbai and Chintan in London. “I completely dedicated myself to the profession of law, and that left very little time for anything else,” he says.

Comparison can hardly be drawn between the rise of a phoenix from ashes to return of former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif from a self-imposed exile from London to the country he had left four years ago. For neither unlike a phoenix, Sharif will not be enjoying an untroubled existence once he landed in Pakistan nor did he rise from the ashes as though shorn of imperial glory can London be compared to an ash heap.

It is no secret that a majority of Christian organisations and community leaders in Northeast India are upset with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the recent outbreak of ethnic violence in Manipur. This has come as a setback to the saffron party’s long term plans seeking a durable political consolidation in the region, for the present.

Telangana Congress chief A Revanth Reddy’s tactic of remaining on top of the news cycle by challenging Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao week after week since July of this year has been working fine. Revanth Reddy has virtually driven the BJP out of the headlines racket by pitting himself as the sole challenger for the Telangana Chief Minister. He has made the assembly elections a one-on-one between the Congress and KCR’s Bharat Rashtra Samithi with the BJP relegated to whether Tiger Raja Singh’s resurrection will fetch it the lone MLA seat of Goshamahal which it had won in 2018. But most of all, Revanth Reddy's challenge to KCR to contest against him from Kodangal constituency has gone unaccepted, which is a big loss of face for the Chief Minister. Instead, KCR has chosen to contest from two relatively safe constituencies.

On a sacred religious occasion of Dussehra, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, played a vicious game of communal politics, when he expressed his diagnosis on social disharmony alleging ‘casteism’ and ‘regionalism’ as the causes, but not even mentioning the hate speeches based on religious bias and communalism. He was grossly wrong on facts and also on his intent.

Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud has added a new dimension to the current debate on caste-based reservation by stressing the need to advance from the accommodative aspect of the reservation policy as it is practised today to one where reservation would be a tool for empowerment.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat does not enjoy the dubious reputation of speaking lies. But on Dussehra, in his annual sermon, when he tried to dig out the ghost of the “foreign powers” for putting the blame for the unabated six-month-long violence in Manipur, one could not hide the shock at Bhagwat not telling the truth and passing the buck only for the sake of electoral gains.