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Watching Wednesday night’s Republican Party’s presidential debate in Milwaukee, I felt an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. Before Donald Trump injected his weird carnival barker routine into the bloodstream of American conservatism, Republican primary contests were generally dull and predictable affairs. And in this respect, much of last night’s proceedings — at which Trump was a no-show — viewed like a kind of bizarre controlled experiment that aimed to recreate the vintage boredom of GOP debates circa 2012 to a tee.

Just five days before the third meeting of the anti-BJP opposition parties now acronymed India National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) on August 31 and September 1 in Mumbai, a major issue should be made clear to the constituents as also to the people of the country in general. This is INDIA has been primarily formed to take on the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections in 2024 and this objective of the present 26 member block does not clash with the ambition of the constituent parties to expand their respective bases in states.

Since its inception in 2009 as BRIC, the Brazil-Russia-India-China coalition which went on to include South Africa in 2010 to become BRICS, has been about inclusion and assertion of the Global South in international affairs. This Asia-Africa-Latin America spanning bloc has transformed from a fair economics-driven entity to now a veritable giant dedicated to birthing a multipolar world order, away from the American neoliberal hegemony driven unipolar, ‘rules-based international order’.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, every other day, rails against the corrupt rule of the Congress and UPA governments in the past and targets the corruption of those ruling regional parties who are arrayed against the BJP.

As the masses in the country are suffering from extreme deprivation, under the dark shadows of unemployment and no earnings even to meet the basic needs, there comes the horrific revelation that under Ayushman Bharat, 7.5 lakh beneficiaries were registered with a single mobile phone number. According to the CAG report tabled in the Parliament, insurance claims for fresh treatment were paid against 88,670 already dead persons. There is no exposure on who has been paid the money as it has not gone to the beneficiaries.

In an unexpected move, PayPal, operating under the trust charter held by its partner Paxos from the New York Department of Financial Services since 2015, introduced what Paxos heralded as the first regulated stablecoin in the U.S. This action drew sharp criticism from US Representative Maxine Waters, who chastised PayPal for preempting the deliberations of her colleagues in Congress. The echoes of this controversy reverberated back to the backlash against Facebook's ill-fated stablecoin, Libra, four years prior.

On the same day the newspapers carried two news related to enforcement directorate. Both the news related to the chief ministers of two states. While the ED carried out raids at some offices and premises in Bengal, connected to the Trinamool Congress MP and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee, its sleuths raided the official residence of the political advisor of chief minister of Chhattisgarh Bhupesh Baghel in Raipur. It was ED’s birthday gift to Baghel.

Greece opposition Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras’s resignation as leader of Syriza on June 29 symbolizes the end of an era. This era had begun in spring 2010 with the imposition of unprecedentedly brutal neoliberal shock therapy and imposition of European Union (EU) tutelage on Greece. Yet this was also the moment of an impressive wave of popular mobilization and, in January 2015, the rise to power of a radical-left force hitherto on the margins of the political system. Seven months later came the capitulation of this same formation to EU diktats — and the destruction of the hope that this small country represented during these tumultuous years.

A combination of nationalism and neglect of north Bengal will be the twin issues on which BJP seeks to retain Dhupguri Assembly constituency in north Bengal. Strategically located near Nepal and Bangladesh, a by-election is scheduled to be held in this Assembly segment on September 5. The results will be announced on September 8.

Now that India has soft landed on the south pole of moon, the dust it will raise will travel from moon surface to the earth.