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The increase in visibility and profile of Nitish in national politics ever since he dumped the BJP and joined hands with Lalu Prasad Yadav has spotlighted the OBC Kurmi community to which Bihar Chief Minister belongs. Kurmis are a small community than Yadavs, they have not always had a cordial relationship. But political aspiration of Kurmis has spiked in recent weeks—Yadavs for the time appear to accept them as “elder brothers’’ and if the bon-homie between Nitish and Lalu continues, the BJP might need some new social engineering in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh before Lok Sabha polls in 2024.

Gandhinagar: Olympic silver medallist weightlifter Mirabai Chanu, fencer Bhavani Devi, wrestler Divya Kakaran and local shooter Elavenil Valarivan lived up to their billing by winning gold medals in their respective events with relative ease in the 36th National Games here on Friday.

New Delhi: Veteran Achal Nath and promising junior Netra Suri, both made ‘Hole-In-Ones’ on the par-3, 17th hole on a day enabling team ‘Athletic Drive’ win 6 of their 7 matches against team ‘B i Luxury’ on Day-2 of the ‘Lloyd Delhi Golf Club League here on Friday.

Gurugram: For Ahmedabad's Varun Parikh it turned out to be of special Navratri gift as he returned five -under 67 on the final day and with a total of 11-under 277 clinched Rs. 1 crore Kapil Dev – Grant Thornton Invitational by five-shot at the DLF Golf & Country Club here on Friday.

Chennai: Local favourite Prabhu Arunagiri (Pacer Yamaha) and Hubballi’s Sarvesh Balappa (Axor Sparks Racing) claimed pole position in their respective categories for the fifth and final round of the Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship at the Madras International Circuit, here on Friday.

Gandhinagar: There were no surprises in women’s 49kg weightlifting competition as despite injury Olympic medallist Mirabai Chanu piped her state mate Sanjita Chanu to win the gold in the 36th National Games, at the Mahatma Mandir here on Friday.

In a democracy, it is said, whatever the policies and implementation, the opposition and others will criticise the Government. But the government, on its part, thinks and says that since opposition is criticizing, its policies must be correct.

The Modi government’s Transport minister Nitin Gadkari doesn’t know the slippery slope of being subjected to journalism and what happens when social media joins the toxic parade. The minister, who lost considerable weight to gain fame, is no lightweight though he often lands in weighty controversies despite being applauded for being the sole Modi-minister to call a spade a spade.

On September 23, the value of the rupee vis-a-vis the dollar fell to a new low: it crossed 81 to a dollar after some weeks of relative stability when it hovered between 79 and 80. And it fell despite the Reserve Bank’s running down of foreign exchange reserves in a bid to hold up its value. In fact foreign exchange reserves had reached their highest level in October last year, but since then there has been a decline by over $90 billion until September 23to just below $550 billion. A part of this decline is because of revaluation: reserves are held in several currencies apart from the dollar, and the decline in the value of the euro vis-a-vis the dollar has been a contributory factor to the fall in the dollar value of our reserves; but the bulk of the fall has been on account of the RBI’s selling off dollars to hold the rupee stable. And yet the rupee has fallen.

India is among the 42 countries where victims of rights violations, human rights defenders and journalists have suffered reprisals and intimidation by States and non-State actors – including being detained, targeted by restrictive legislation and surveilled both online and offline.