View Articles

A key feature of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent foreign trips was the vegetarian meals served in state banquets organized to mark his presence.

‘Pee-gate’, standing for the incident of a top executive of a multinational urinating on a co-passenger in an inumbrated state, was a new year sensation. The man, Shankar Mishra, was banned from flying for four months while Air India, the operator of the New York-Delhi flight on which the clumsy behaviour occurred, was slapped a fine of Rs 3 million for failure to prevent the mid-air drama. The incident itself happened in November 2022, but it came to light only in January this year.

India is working out local currency trade deals with an increasingly larger group of countries, thereby avoiding invoicing in US dollars for every trade. This is a move towards internationalisation of the Indian currency when the country is opening up its external sector.

Spam calls continue to intrude daily lives of mobile users with impunity. Users maintain they disconnect and block three and more spam calls daily despite Do Not Disturb (DND) facility having been introduced since 2007 by the union government. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has already introduced in 2010 a framework, Telecom Commercial Customers Preference Regulation (TCCCPR), to curb spam calls. But the spammers went ahead and thwarted this regulation as well. Union government also keeps introducing new regulations from time to time to keep spam calls under checks. All such measures have failed to check pesky calls. It seems spam callers have infiltrated every mode of communications. Users are finding it difficult to deal with such problems.

New Delhi: Indian shooter put up a disappointing show as India finished with a solitary bronze medal bagged by Prithviraj Tondaiman in the trap event at the ISSF Shotgun World Cup Lonato in Italy

New Delhi: Avinash Sable qualified for the Paris Olympics as he timed a season’s best 8:11.63 to finish sixth in the 3000m steeplechase at the Silesia Diamond League athletics meet in Chorzow (Poland).

India has been put in a peculiar situation by Russian oil exporters as they prefer Yuan payment against the purchase of Russian crude by Indian importers. Of late, the latter are believed to be spending billions of dollars in buying Chinese Yuan to pay for Russian imports. This is despite the India government’s caution that had asked banks and traders to avoid using Yuan to pay for Russian imports because of India’s long-running political differences with China. India's purchases of seaborne crude from Russia have surpassed those by China a couple of months back. However, India’s efforts to convince Russia to accept Rupee payment for imports failed earlier this year when the two countries suspended the months-long negotiations to settle bilateral trade in Rupees.

As we approach the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the ruling NDA and the combined opposition prepare for the fierce battle ahead. The opposition is holding strategy meetings in Bengaluru its second, on July 18, while the NDA is meeting in Delhi on the same day to showcase its strength.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be at the NDA meet on July 18. Modi wants to revive the comatose NDA as an alternative to the Opposition’s ‘Mahagathbandhan’, which is shaping up nice and friendly despite the blips and glitches. The BJP’s alliance partners in the NDA had helped Modi become Prime Minister twice – in 2014, and in 2019. Post-2019, however, with the brute majority, arrogance went to BJP’s head. Of late, there is a new realization that Modi alone, and BJP on its own, cannot guarantee victory in 2024.

The erratic actions of the BJP leadership, especially in three states, Maharashtra, Bihar and Bengal, makes it explicit that the threat of losing the 2024 Lok Sabha elections has turned it so desperate that would not mind going to any extent and abusing the state machinery for retrieving its lost grounds in these states.