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The sale of the 21st tranche of the electoral bonds is on from July 1-10 this year. Earlier this year, the last sale was held for ten days from April 1-10. The Supreme Court Chief Justice N V Ramana gave an indication the same month that the SC would be taking up the pending petition challenging the sale of the electoral bonds. However, even after three months since he gave the assurance, the petition has not been taken up. The net result, the ruling party BJP is cornering a huge amount from these bonds imparting massive boost to its financial muscle, which, in turn, is being used either to fuel elections, or perhaps even topple well-functioning elected governments such as in Maharashtra.

Just as Shiv Sena split in Maharashtra, the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu is engaged in a power struggle between two former chief ministers, E. Palaniswami (EPS) and O. Panneerselvam (OPS). In a fast-developing drama, the EPS camp would like to relieve OPS of his present post of party treasurer and deputy leader in the Assembly. After losing the Assembly elections last year, and successive local body polls, the EPS camp feels that the dual leadership has "only hampered the working of the party.

New Delhi: Youth World champions Alfiya Pathan and Gitika came up with dazzling performances to win gold medals in the Elorda Cup in Kazakhstan’s capital Nur-Sultan on Monday.

The women labour force participation in India has remained low, oscillating between 16 to 23 per cent in the last few years chiefly because structural barriers ranging from access to education, lack of skilling and a direct correlation between gender or disability and incidence of poverty. Moreover, the majority of them working are in very low quality of jobs. Now, the emerging trend suggests that they are more likely to take up platform jobs after their education and marriage, an unenviable situation, that a NITI Aayog study released recently called ‘an emerging positive trend’.

For the ruling Trinamool Congress(TMC) in West Bengal and its bigger ally in the Northern districts Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM), the recently concluded elections brought good news. The BGPM dominated the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) polls, winning 27 seats, while the TMC won five.

Several things were happening when the BJP was holding its national executive in Hyderabad, targeting Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao with an eye on the Telangana assembly elections slated for 2023. Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid low KCR with attacks on dynastic politics, resistance was building up against the BJP all over for knowingly abandoning Hindus at the altar of Modi’s ‘sabka saath sabka vikas’ mantra, which without the appeasement of the Muslim votebanks of the secular parties with rations for votes, would go for a toss.

The Samajwadi Party’s defeat in two Uttar Pradesh by-elections, the Trinamool Congress’s miserable performance in the Tripura polls and the BJP’s strangulation of the ruling Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi with the help of the Shiv Sena rebels, are signs of the BJP juggernaut’s – bulldozer’s? – relentless progress in various directions.

It is good to see that a host of large Indian business houses and public sector enterprises have rapidly stepped up imports from Russia taking full advantage of hefty price discounts offered by Russian suppliers on a host of goods in the face of multiple trade sanctions from the NATO countries, European Union and their allies. Among the country’s top business leaders to step up imports from Russia are the Tatas, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, Kumar Mangalam Birla-led UltraTech Cement, Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Steel group, Saroj Poddar-led Chambal Fertilisers& Chemicals and Tony Fountain-led Nayara Energy (formerly Essar Petroleum). The latest move is saving Indian companies millions of dollars in import costs and benefiting the country in billions of dollars of foreign exchange outgo as imports are mostly Indian Rupee denominated.

New Delhi: Expressing satisfaction over team's showing against England in the opening match, Chief coach Janneke Schopman and skipper Savita on Monday exuded confidence that India will come out victorious against China in their second pool B match of Women's Hockey World Cup at Amstelveen on Tuesday.

BHOPAL: On July 6, crores of Madhya Pradesh voters will elect their local government bodies. Originally elections were to be held in 2020 but they were delayed because of Covid-19. The term of all the local bodies expired in 2019. During the gap, affairs of local bodies were governed by officials.