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Drug addiction has become a major curse of our times, a menace which threatens public health and results in the dissolution of human personality, promoting conditions for various forms of human degradation, whose consequences spread to crime, lawlessness and ruination of families. People using drugs are generally associated with violent crime, robbery and burglary and other forms of crimes. Social effects of drug abuses are a higher crime rate, declining health and depression for friends and family. According to latest official information, 82 percent addicts are incurring expenditure between Rs.200 to Rs. 2000 on their daily dose of drugs and the remaining 18 percent spend above Rs.2000 daily.

A bad omen indeed. On the day the entire state machinery of ‘Bharat’ was busy exploiting the G20 event to project Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the “Yugpurush” and “Vishwaguru”, via decorating the national capital with larger than life cut-outs and festoons, even bigger than any of the world leaders participating at the summit, like the US President Joe Biden, the nondescript voters of Ghosi in a single stroke struck an implausible blow through the ballots.

THRUVANANTHAPURAM: Puthuppally by-election has not, sprung any surprises. Congress candidate Chandy Oommen won the by-election, necessitated by the death of his father and former chief minister Oommen Chandy with a big majority.

The jolt the Bharatiya Janata Party sustained in Ghosi assembly seat of Uttar Pradesh is being blamed by sections of the BJP on Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Behan Mayawati, who allegedly told BSP supporters to cast NOTA. But the NOTA numbers on counting day did not support the theory. The BJP was looking for alibies when the Ghosi defeat was the dissatisfaction of the electorate with the Yogi Adityanath government’s policies, the fallout of rising prices and rampant unemployment. Now, realisation is dawning that an understanding should have been reached with the Bahujan Samaj Party just like the one with Karnataka's Janata Dal-S.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has claimed credit on the eve of G20 summit for converting a heads of government meeting into “a people’s festival”. The government did well to popularize the Indian G20 agenda among people across the country and the world, even if this was something done a la Bollywood style. It is, therefore, striking that in the run—up to summit there has been considerable criticism of the Prime Minister’s leadership style in international media.

An unexpected twist in the run-up to next year’s Indonesian presidential election puts Centrist Democratic International (CDI), the world’s largest alliance of conservative political parties, and Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest and most moderate Muslim civil society movement, in a bind.

Barring platitudes, the joint statement between India and the US in the wake of President Joe Biden’s talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi ahead of the G20 summit is heavily loaded in favour of the United States rather than the other way around.

The victory of the Trinamool Congress candidate Prof. Nirmal Chandra Roy at the Dhupguri assembly constituency by poll in Bengal by defeating the BJP candidate Smt. Tapashi Roy by around 4,000 votes, vindicates TMC supremo Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s claim that the TMC is the main INDIA alliance party in Bengal and TMC will be deciding the seat sharing formula for 2024 Lok Sabha elections as the prime anti-BJP party in the state.

Newly constituted INDIA alliance of 28 opposition political parties and refurbished NDA of 39 political parties led by BJP had just tasted the fruit of their first ever electoral battle. INDIA alliance has emerged stronger in 4 of the six states where byelections were held, by winning 4 of the seven seats and establishing upper hand over the BJP and NDA in 3 out of 4 regions in the country.

The devil may sometimes be given his due, but not the translator. But English literary scene underwent a dramatic change after Edith Grossman translated works of Latin American authors in English and turned them into literary icons overnight to the devotees of English literature.