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After what promised to be a cakewalk turned into a shock defeat for a Trinamool Congress nominee at Sagardighi by-election, party supremo and chief minister Mamata Banerjee had reshuffled the Muslim leadership of her party. Pulling up the socks at what appeared to be the first indication of the erosion of her minority vote bank after a rejig meeting at her Kalighat residence, Banerjee announced sweeping changes.

After seven days of disruption of parliamentary proceedings, the government is now planning to cut short the second half of the budget session by guillotining the demands for grants and passing the finance bill without any discussion.

The Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic review on India that was presented in the 52nd session of Human Rights Council (February 27 – March 31, 2023) presents a very saddening ground reality that exists despite the government’s commitment towards eliminating torture. It is despite the fact that the ruling establishment has always been projecting itself as fulfilling its “national duty”.

Rising new COVID-19 cases again chiefly due to a new variant XBB.1.16 have put India on alert. The seriousness of the threat has been noted even at the Prime Minister level who chaired a review meeting on March 23, the day on which a single-day rise of 1300 new cases were recorded, which was highest in the last 140 days.

India has entered one of its darkest phases of deprivation when the annual income of the poorest 20 percent has fallen by 53 percent and still continues to fall from the level of 2015-16. Since last three decades, economy was evolving at the rate of seven percent a year and was going up constantly till the advent of the pandemic years. Per capita income before the Pandemic days had arrived at 2100 dollars a year. It was in the same years that the richest twenty percent were reaping an income growth of 39 percent. It was the result of the Covid days that had impacted the economy splitting the population in a perfect contrast of Haves and Have Nots.

They hate his guts, and that was reason enough to plaster the walls in Delhi with posters demanding ‘Modi Hatao/Desh Bachao’. Tens of thousands of these posters carrying the message appeared overnight in the city where Prime Minister Narendra Modi lives, and rules from.

Pyre—Tamil writer Perumal Murugan’s novel about caste—based hatred, along with 12 other books—made it to the long-list of international Booker Prize 2023. Murugan’s 2013 book was translated into English by Anirudh Vasudevan in 2016.

Expert opinion in Assam remains somewhat divided regarding a recent declining trend in the state’s annual tea production. While the state government and researchers have warned of further drop in production in the short term, eminent planters and industry circles feel such fears are exaggerated.

The Chinese-mediated Saudi-Iranian reconciliation potentially casts a spotlight on fundamentally flawed security policies of regional powers, including not only the kingdom and Iran but also the United Arab Emirates.

“You bring me the man, I'll find you the crime.” That was Lavrentiy Beria, chief of the Soviet secret police, boasting during one of his more expansive moods. After Rahul Gandhi returned from London, it seems like there’s an Indian Lavrentiy, who has found a crime to fit Rahul Gandhi. The Congress MP has a target on his back with “Mir Jaffer” painted in bold letters.