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AAP’s victory in Delhi municipals polls is not a surprise. The exit polls were right for once, and the BJP’s undistinguished record in running the municipality made it easy to believe them for once. The margin of victory is lower than what was expected by many, but it is a clear win, nevertheless.

The myth that Narendra Modi is a “strong and charismatic leader” has been severely exposed and smashed. The elections to Gujarat and Himachal assemblies and Municipal Corporation of Delhi along with the by elections to seven assembly seats in states make it unambiguous that the edifice of strong leader built assiduously by the RSS and Modi’s backroom boys has cracked down vertically.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi led ruling establishment have earned a “censure” for India during just concluded 17th Asia and Pacific Regional Meeting (APRM) organized by International Labour Organization (ILO) at Singapore. It was held during 6-9 December 2022 to discuss and devise ways and means to bolster efforts to achieve social justice and decent work for all, the areas in which Modi government’s performance have been all along deplorable during the last 8 years of their rule.

Inflation is showing signs of softening, providing much-needed relief to the government as well as the managers of the economy, not to speak of the common man, whose household budgets have been under a squeeze in view of skyrocketing prices. The improvement is reflected in the latest rate hike by the Reserve Bank, which is by a lower margin of 35 basis points compared to the three previous instances of 50 each. So far so good. But the important point not to be missed is that the reversing trend is in keeping with a global trend rather than any spectacular success that can be credited to only India.

New Delhi: Defending champion Lakshya Sen, two-time Olympics medalist PV Sindhu, and former World No. 1 Kidambi Srikanth along with the world No. 7 men’s doubles pairing of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, will lead home challenge at the Yonex-Sunrise India Open badminton tournament, to be held at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi from January 17-22.

Bhubaneswar: Ahead of the Hockey World Cup four new pitches have been laid and all-set for action in the state-of-the-art venues at Kalinga Hockey Stadium, Bhubaneswar, as well as the Birsa Munda Hockey Stadium in Rourkela.

New Delhi: The 17th Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon held in October upheld the spirit of giving and in a 30-day fundraising window, raised a whopping Rs 1.59 crore for various causes with the motto #EachStepCounts.

India’s heatwave tragedy may be devastating for common men and the ecology of several regions of the country, Modi government is yet to rise from its slumber to start framing of a comprehensive plan to deal with the likely devastation. Union Government has been treating it just as an opportunity to strengthen the cooling sector business, since the tragedy is set to boost cooling business and industry. India has already devised an action plan that is called “India Cooling Action Plan” (ICAP), and now the World Bank is going to support it in a big way.

Despite the opposition by the Defence Civilian Employees of 41 Ordnance Factories and also in violation of the previous agreements with the federations, taking advantage of Covid-19 Pandemic, the Narendra Modi government took an unilateral decision to splinter the defence production industry with more than 220 years history into seven non-viable corporations from October 1, 2021. As the trade unions decided to go for indefinite strike against the ill-conceived decision, the Modi government promulgated the draconian Essential Defence Services Ordnance 2021(ESDO 21) and subsequently passed it in the Parliament bypassing the objections raised by the opposition MPs including the left parties. At present the EDSA 2021 has lapsed.

World Bank has revised upwards its earlier GDP growth estimate to 6.9 per cent for India this financial year on the back of strong macroeconomic fundamentals and economic revival after Covid-19 mayhem. This is certainly music to the ears as India is perhaps a few countries looking up in otherwise gloomy global economy. Inflation is one factor, which is still daunting the economy and Reserve Bank of India has rightly taken measured monetary steps to bring it down to acceptable band. RBI has raised short-term repo rate, a barometer of interest rates, by a mere 0.35 per cent as against expectation of 0.5 per cent. This has been done to ensure that growth momentum is not severely hampered by going all out contain inflation. Consumer Price Index at 6.7 per cent is still higher than the RBI band of 4 plus-minus 2 per cent, but it has started slowing down. It is, however, still a source of worry as food and fuel inflation, which affects the poor most, are still high and are expected to continue for a few more quarters.