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The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is coming apart. The Samajwadi Party, which is a component of the INDI-Alliance and has two MLAs in the Maharashtra Assembly distanced itself from the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliance and took part in the oath-taking ceremony, which the Congress, Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar) boycotted. This apart, there are reports that the Shiv Sena of Uddhav Thackeray is mulling a decision to quit the MVA and return to the Hindutva fold!

Much to its mortification, our country today is surrounded by unfriendly, if not hostile, neighbours. Leave out the Himalayan kingdom Bhutan, which is more like Switzerland equally well disposed to every other nation, the rest of India’s other immediate neighbours having undergone regime changes in recent times have no love lost for the largest south Asian country. The birth of Bangladesh ending the subjugation of Bengalis, their language, culture et al by an ever hostile and domineering Islamabad was a revolution with support from India. That country has come full circle with the dethroning of Sheikh Hasina that ended an unbroken 15-year rule by the Awami League.

The world observes International Human Rights Day annually on December 10 to commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by the United Nations General Assembly at Paris on December 10, 1948, as the world’s most groundbreaking global pledges. The landmark document enshrines the inalienable rights that everyone is entitled to as a human being regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. The UDHR sets out common standards for all peoples and nations as a global blueprint for international, national and local laws and policies and as bedrock of the 2030 UN agenda for sustainable development.

Bengal, earlier known as the state for bandhs by the labour, has attained a prime position for doing business among the states in the country. The state which a decade back was most despised by the leading industrialists as well as academics and political leaders and was derided as a state with no hope for resurrection of industrial and business activities, has been acknowledged by a recent survey of SKOCH as the country's "new IT capital".

'Hindu-Muslim' is a post-2014 phenomenon. Now, there is the allegation that India is looking at Bangladesh through a “Hindu lens”, instead of looking at Bangladesh through a “Muslim lens.” The critic forgets that Bangladesh is looking at India through a “Muslim lens” and that there is an undeclared war between India and Bangladesh. Also, Pakistan is taking advantage even as the minority Hindus in Bangladesh are being subjected to untold miseries. Rape. Murder. Abduction. Religious Persecution. And imprisonment.

On December 6, 1992, exactly 32 years ago, Babri Mosque at Ayodhya was demolished. On November 9, 2019, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India delivered a verdict for building Ram Temple at the demolition site. Ram Temple was inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi on January 22, 2024. Now, many other Mosques and Dargahs (Muslim places of worship) have become new targets, creating great communal tensions and disharmony between Hindus and Muslims across the country, contrary to the expectations rose from the Ayodhya Verdict.

A debate among economists and policy wonks was raging about the deceleration of the Indian economy and rising price line particularly in the context of the forthcoming monetary policy of the Reserve Bank of India.

Devendra Fadnavis as Maharashtra Chief Minister for a third term underscores the man’s importance to the Bharatiya Janata Party. But why is Fadnavis a greater pick than several others who could have staked claim for the top post? The answer must lie in the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was very, very pleased Fadnavis got his due. In 2019, Fadnavis had agreed to play second fiddle to Eknath Shinde for the BJP's sake and here was Shinde refusing to let go till the last few hours left.

Villagers of Markadwadi, a small village in Solapur of Maharashtra holding a mock poll for “re-electing” their representative using ballot papers on December 3, apparently might be construed as expression of distrust over the functioning of electronic voting machines (EVMs) but in reality this exercise exposed the dubious election exercise of Rajeev Kumar’s Election Commission, it also makes the Supreme Court to have a relook at its month old order justifying use of EVM.

KOLKATA: Uncertainties over receipt of proceeds are now being factored in by India’s exporters regularly servicing the Bangladesh market. India-Bangladesh trade, a very large chunk of which is carried through some half-a-dozen land ports, was not seriously affected even after the collapse of the Sheikh Hasina regime and the former Prime Minister fled to India on August 5 last. For about two weeks thereafter, bilateral trade saw some disruptions but thereafter, it has been generally okay. But, of late, pointers are no more as reassuring, export trade sources told IPA.