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None can deny that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is the storeroom of the best imaginative and fertile brains. Earlier the CBI sleuths had come out with the revelation that Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav owned the Gurugram mall constructed from the illegal money received from the job seekers. Their allegation did not stand the scrutiny with Tejashvi shooting off in a series of tweets; "The Urban Cubes mall belongs to White Land Corporation Ltd and a BJP MP has an investment in it. Krishna Kumar is the present owner of this mall. Moreover, Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar inaugurated that mall. Now, CBI is answerable to it. It should clarify the owner of the mall”.

Farmers in India began 2022 with great hope but are ending it with greater despair. The year started with peace after the year-long historical farmers’ movement was called off in December 2021, but a year later December 2022 witnessed re-emergence of agitations of all hues of farmers’ union including RSS-BJP affiliated Bharatiya Kisan Sangh. The year saw the unfulfilled promise of “doubling farmers’ income by 2022” and also heard the lie of the Modi government in the Parliament of India in July that farmers income have more than doubled. Farmers are feeling cheated on promises, have started agitation again demanding remunerative prices for their produce in the midst of rising input cost, and decline in yield of both the summer Rabi crops and winter Kharif.

Communist Party of India was formed on December 26, 1925. It has been a day that makes us remember how the suffering Indian masses were united against the forces of British imperialism. The commitment to fight to end the class divided society, to end exploitation, and to create a society for people has been kept alive through all these decades. We pay homage to all those who lived and died for the cause.

A look back at the year 2022, which is ending this Saturday, shows that it has been a year in which the Indian economy struggled to come out of the deep trough it was plunged into in the years 2020 and 2021. Rising inflation, growing unemployment, industrial stagnation and ever-widening inequalities in income and wealth were the visible features.

“Pedro Castillo emerged from that deep, excluded, and marginalized Peru that has been the primordial object of nefarious consequences of treason by the elites,” according to an observer. Castillo was the first progressive candidate ever to win a presidential election in Peru.

It is indeed a tough proposition to decode the political moves of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and to put in public domain. Even his close friends vouch that it is his political acumen not to allow his left hand to know what his right hand was doing has been the primary factor for his survival in the politics of Bihar.

As 2022 rolls over for 2023 the Opposition has to declare a PM-face. There is no other option for the opposition parties but to fight Narendra Modi unitedly. Consider it a fait accompli, something that has been decided, and all that remains is to make it public. Fait accompli forecloses any opposition. The decision has been taken, period. As the Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi would say, “Full-stop, Ta-Ta, Bye-Bye!”

Judicial academicians will do well to bring out the correlation, if any, between the tenure of Supreme Court chief justices and the quality of decisions pronounced during their respective tenures. The year 2022 would be a rich resource for any such study as it saw three different CJIs at the helm and interestingly, all the three accounted for landmark verdicts, all of which were different from one another in terms of their implications for the Executive and commitment towards it.

The transition has been relatively smooth. Enough for P T Usha to flash that trademark smile at everyone present at Olympic Bhavan, headquarters of Indian Olympic Association in Delhi. Dressed in a beige tussore salwar kameez with a smart floral jacket on a wintry Saturday, Usha walked into the history books once again—she became the first Olympian and woman to be IOA President. The 58-year-old, a multiple Asian Games gold medallist who came fourth in 400m hurdles at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, ushers an era of hope in Indian sport. An era where athletes administer the game, and do so for the betterment of Indian sport.

Qatar 2022 put the myth of a separation of sports and politics to bed. Like in Qatar, human, worker, and LGBT rights are likely to be left, right, and centre as other Gulf and North African states move centre stage as hosts of and bidders for some of the world’s foremost mega-sporting events, the 2030 World Cup and the 2036 Olympics, and major Asian tournaments, including the Asian Cup and the Asian Games.