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Chasing Nazi spokesperson Joseph Goebbel’s famous maxim that people tend to believe a lie as a biblical truth if it is insistently repeated for hundred times, the RSS and BJP’s ecosystem have launched a psychological war against Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar.

A model of the comic strip character Spiderman has been strategically placed before Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee's Harish Chatterjee Street residence as part of Christmas and New Year decorations this year. It is lit up after dark and its limbs move too; in a way it encapsulates the ups and downs of the TMC in the past 26 years even as January 1 is the party's foundation day.

The year 2023 was a challenging one for Russia. It was marked by major events with mixed repercussions across multiple spheres. The war remained the most defining feature for Russia throughout the year. The two most crucial factors that Western sanctions were designed to influence must be evaluated for their utility.

There is a chance – a realistic one to deny Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party a general elections hat-trick and Modi his third prime ministerial term. All it requires is a leap of faith. Name ‘Behan’ Mayawati – the original ‘Dalit face’ – INDIA bloc’s ‘PM candidate’ and when that is done, the Bahujan Samaj Party will join the opposition alliance for the much-needed break to shatter Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of a hat-trick. And that in a leap year, which is what 2024 happens to be.

New Delhi: Ace goalkeeper Savita was on Saturday retained captain of the 18-member Indian Women’ Team for the Hockey Olympic Qualifiers scheduled to be held in Ranchi from 13th to 19th January.

New Delhi: It was disappointing opening and closing of 2023 for Indian men's hockey as they put up a poor show and again failed to take advantage of being hosts of the World Cup at Bhubaneswar-Rourkela in January and closed by finishing fourth in five nation tournament at Valencia. However, in between the Harmanpreet Singh-led side managed to turn things around with stellar performances in the Asian Champions Trophy Chennai and a Gold medal at the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, ending a 9-year wait to stand on top of the podium.

The INDIA alliance meeting in Delhi is broadly an effort at political resuscitation. For three months, the opposition formation had virtually suspended such strategic level dialogue, as the Congress prioritised the assembly elections. Talk of crucial loss of momentum. INDIA’s leading partner Congress stands devastated after losing in three states to the BJP, reinforcing perception of BJP’s dominance of the crucial Hindi belt. The scale of the mountain the opposition is forced to climb appears quite forbidding. So let’s start with a few points of consolidation for the opposition.

Economic forecasting is always hazardous. It is more so in the current scenario. There are always any number of uncertainties about the future. But currently these are multifarious. No one really knows, including the dramatis personae, what will happen in the next week, let alone in course of the coming year.

It is election year for the Indian economy and the footnote to the robust economic performance would pinpoint the risks of freebies and subsidy politics impacting growth. The pressures are expected to pinch hard from mid-year onwards as the drivers of growth would shift gears down by at least a couple of levels. Increased allocation for food support programmes, cooking gas subsidy and rural employment plans has already been indicated.

The catchline “Phir Aayega Modi” of the saffron ecosystem needs correction. It portrays him as a visionary who will return to usher India to a new and affluent ecosphere — purely as a device to strengthen the perception that Modi is the only saviour. Therefore, people must elect him. But scratch a little more and out pops reality, the catchline is nothing other than perception management, it’s got nothing to do with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s skills-set.