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With the last day of filing nominations history, the Bharatiya Janata Party has been reduced to defending itself from going against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister's 'Batenge toh katenge' campaign call. The day after, the Mahayuti stood divided with the BJP unable to stick to its stance. Instead, there is "our stance is very clear. All the parties in the alliance should decide their own candidate."

KOLKATA: West Bengal has been favourite tourist destination for Narendra Modi’s most reliable lieutenant and Chanakya of BJP, Home Minister Amit Shah. But Sunday, October 27, visit was different. He used the occasion of an official engagement to launch the election campaign though the assembly elections will be held in April/ May 2026.

LUCKNOW: After debacle in 2024 Lok Sabha poll, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has staked his prestige in crucial by-elections on November 13 for nine assembly seats in the state. In the absence of Congress, it is going to fight between UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Samajwadi Party national President Akhilesh Yadav.

India-Japan relation has always been politically undeterred and peaceful as well as non-controversial. Eventually, the relation between the two nations tilted more to economic partnership, with Japan depending on India for natural resources and India harping on technology transfer through Japanese investment. In other words, there were three issues, which underscored the benchmark for India- Japan relation. They were bilateral trade, Japanese FDI in India and Japanese financial support, that is, ODA loan and grants.

The relationship between India and China is a contentious issue. The boundary issue between the two nations is a knotty problem. China has the concept of expansionism. It does not follow the McMahon Line and Johnson Line drawn by the erstwhile British colonial rulers in consultation with relevant parties. However, in regard to Myanmar, it agrees on McMahon Line, but not in the case with India. As a result in 1962 China defied these two lines, invaded and occupied large chunks of Indian territory. Thus, the Line of Actual Control (LAC) was drawn between the two countries. Still not satisfied with the occupation, Beijing claims parts of Indian territory like Ladakh and Arunachal as its own. Chinese expansionism is not the concept of Chinese Communist Party alone, it existed with the imperialist dynasties and the Nationalist Kuomintang Party.

For RSS blowing hot and cold in the same breath is not the sign of its irresoluteness, instead it reflects the highest form of its duplicity; when its right face is not aware of the message its left face was sending. Only a week back the RSS leadership sent a message to its rank and file across the country that it was no more engaged in a polemical combat with Narendra Modi and he continues to be public face of the saffron ecosystem, but on October 26 addressing the RSS cadres, its general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale endorsed UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s ’batenge toh katenge’ remark on Hindu unity, and projected him virtually as the new modern face of Hindus and Hindutva.

On Tuesday, the last day for filing nominations for the November 20 Maharashtra assembly elections, both the Mahayuti and the Maha Vikas Aghadi alliances were still looking for closure to their seat-sharing blues. Nobody in either grouping could provide clarity to the goings on, the protracted delays plaguing seat-sharing. And while on seat-sharing, the BJP is fighting allegations of "wrong-choice" candidates, accused of giving tickets to "outsiders".

Bihar often creates contrasting images about itself. On the one hand, it produces many IAS, IPS, and professionals in other fields. On the other hand, school education with mass copying in the exams and malpractices in evaluating the copies are too familiar to be talked about. Over the years, government jobs were far and few between. The payment of salaries was delayed by several months. However, all these images should change now. The Bihar Education Department, for example, offers some freshness.

Domestic issues often override international commitments in diplomacy. China’s preference of Kamala Harris to Donald Trump as the next US president may look unusual but not entirely illogical from the world’s second largest economy’s business point of view. China may not mind if such a possibility could enhance diplomatic discomfort to its ally, Russia, which has been fighting Ukraine to prevent its western neighbour from joining NATO. Under the leadership of President Joe Biden, the US has extended massive fund and military equipment support to Ukraine to face off the Russian assault head on in the last two years, making the US arms manufacturing industry a major gainer so far. A Trump victory could mean a US pull back forcing the end of the Ukraine war. But, going by past experience, it could also embitter China-US trade and diplomatic relations. Adversely, a Kamala Harris victory next month is most likely to escalate the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war diminishing the prospect of an early resolution of the bitter conflict.

KOLKATA: A development in the ultra-Left politics that happened on September 9 this year in Jharkhand, to be more specific in the Dhanbad coalfields, gets cemented as elections for the sixth state Assembly knock at the door and revive memories of the role that the Marxist Coordination Committee’s veteran leader A K Roy (Arun Kumar Roy) had played in the area’s trade union movement for many years. [Not many people were aware of his full name; he was well-known and always addressed as A K Roy].