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Most of us who were alive then remember where we were on the morning of the 9/11 attacks. As we mark the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War, I wonder how many also remember where we were that day.

“The idea that over 100,000 forces would invade another country since World War II, nothing like that has happened,” said US president Joe Biden last month, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Many were surprised in the state though no eyebrows were raised in Trinamool Congress after chief minister and party supremo Mamata Banerjee took charge of Birbhum unit of her party thereby unwittingly revealing an organisational weakness. For after Anubrata Mondal heading the district unit went behind the bars in a cattle smuggling case when ED arrested him, the chief minister had set up a core committee to run the local organization of this red earth district.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is a late bloomer. That said, he has been a Member of Parliament several times over and, therefore, cannot be reduced to a Johnny-come-lately. And after Amethi, he wasn’t a stranger to the voters of Wayanad. But it is hardly likely that Rahul Gandhi will retrace his steps to Amethi, the constituency that rejected him but was also a pocket borough of the Gandhi family for the longest of time.

Kisan Mahapanchayat, the Grand Assembly of the Farmers held on March 20 in Delhi, has signalled a bigger farmers’ movement on the cards. It was held after about four months of their beginning the second leg of farmers’ movement on November 26, 2022, when farmers marched to submit memorandums to governors across the country demanding fulfilment of unfulfilled promises made by the PM Narendra Modi and his government at the Centre.

After the recent meeting of the RSS’s Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha (ABPS) there is no ambiguity now that Narendra Modi or his ministerial colleagues or even the BJP leaders hardening their stand against Rahul Gandhi and seeking his apology are being ordained at the behest of the RSS. The one liner comment from the home minister Amit Shah is the only dissenting narration. Home minister Amit Shah said to allow the parliament function the government was ready to talk to opposition to end the logjam. He even said; “the government was ready to go “two steps ahead” to resolve the standoff if the Opposition took “two steps forward”.

Recent deaths in Gambia, Uzbekistan and the USA, caused by toxic and contaminated medicines manufactured in and exported by India, has put a question mark on the oversight, efficacy and quality control mechanism of the drugs regulator, the Central Drugs Standard Control 0rganisation (CDSCO). Be it the quality control of both branded and generic medicines, their pricing, rampant manufacturing and marketing of spurious drugs across the country, collusion of National Medical Commission (NMC) and CDSCO, thriving of drug mafia impacting diagnostics, prescriptive medicines, commercialization of healthcare system as a whole are symptomatic of the malaise of all round failure of both the regulators, resulting in fleecing of the people. Medical doctors in private corporate hospitals working on periodic target basis for both diagnostic and prescriptive medicines, in case of failing to meet the target, are fired instantly, is yet another scam indicating crass commercialization and high costs of healthcare, happening with the connivance of the regulators.

New Delhi: The Bridge Federation of India (BFI) on Monday named 18-member squad for the Asian Games to be held in Hangzhou, China from 23 September to 08 October 2023.

Gurugram: A star-studded field with record number of entries with the highest ever prize fund for a domestic event will be the feature of the seventh leg of the Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour getting underway at the DLF Golf and Country Club here from Tuesday.

New Delhi: Olympics bronze medallist Lovlina Borgohain and the Asian Championships bronze medallist Sakshi Choudhary came up with stellar performances as they thrashed their rivals by identical 5-0 verdicts to move into the quarter finals of the 75 and 52kg categories respectively at the Rs 20 crore Mahindra IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex here on Monday.