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The worst that is being spoken of about newly minted Samajwadi politician Swami Prasad Maurya is not that he is defector or turncoat, but that he is somebody who is more worried about his family heirlooms, concerned they may not get due recognition as the years roll by. At the same time, congrats is due to Swami Prasad Maurya for finally zeroing in on the right political party, one which values dynasty and family rule.

New Delhi: World Championship bronze medalist young Lakshya Sen staged a superb comeback to oust experienced HS Prannoy while top seed PV Sindhu overpowered promising Ashmita Chaliha to move into the semi finals in their respective categories of the Yonex-Sunrise India Open badminton here on Friday.

New Delhi: Leading racer Jehan Daruvala’s Formula 1 hopes received a massive boost with Italy’s reigning F2 champions Prema Racing signing him up for the 2022 season.

Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Channi is okay with the Supreme Court setting up a five-member panel to go into the breach of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s security. Channi spoke to Modi one-on-one and wished Modi a long life till the end of time—and then hoped that the end of time never comes!

A public interest plea filed by Justice Anjana Prakash, formerly of the Patna High Court and senior journalist Qurban Ali has been accepted by the Supreme Court for hearing. It is against the hate speeches at the Haridwar Dharma Sansad held on December 17 and again on December 19, in two separate meetings. One was organised by Yati Narsinghanand and the other by 'Hindu Yuva Vahini'. The court also allowed the petitioners to file complaints against planned similar events in the days ahead.

As Manipur braces for the two-phase state Assembly polls, the possibility of sporadic political violence cannot be ruled out. State-based media reports summing up the pre-poll situation, have duly mentioned that most of the long term problems/social evils plaguing Manipur --widespread drug trafficking, the lingering effects of insurgency among a section of youths and an uncertain law and order situation – will hardly be addressed by major parties.

One of the most important arguments advanced by John Maynard Keynes, the renowned economist, was that the operation of financial markets under capitalism is deeply flawed. Such markets are intrinsically incapable of distinguishing between “enterprise” where an asset is held because of the stream of returns that its ownership yields over time, and “speculation” where an asset is held not for this yield but only because it can be sold at a higher price tomorrow to someone else who in turn would buy it because he believes that he can sell it at an even higher price the day after tomorrow.

Resignation of three ministers in three days from the ruling BJP led by the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has set the political wheel in the state in motion. As many as 10 MLAs have quit the BJP. The house of the BJP seems to be crumbling. Modi’s so called charisma seems not to be working within the party and NDA as uniting force. MLA Chaudhary Amar Singh of Apna Dal has also quit the alliance with BJP, which was the eleventh resignation. It signals not only political realignment of the parties but also shifting alliances of the voters – communities quitting parties, and hence there is no end in sight for the humiliation of the Yogi Adityanath personally, and the BJP as a whole.

BJP seems to have re-discovered the original intent of Mark Zuckerberg when he set up a website for Harvard University students, which was later to become Facebook, the social media giant that it is today. Zuckerberg set it up essentially as a tool for students to shame each other and their professors. But as the Harvard dropout’s epoch-making initiative grew in stature, his platform evolved into one of the most effective communication media for the masses, bringing people together, empowering the voiceless and a load of other benefits, with the original hate resource becoming only an aberration.

The four states of the five that go for ballot in two months for state assemblies seem to be bound for major political change. Three states, Uttar Pradesh, Goa and Uttarakhand may slip out of the BJP hands and Punjab may remain a distant dream for the BJP. The major vote banks won eight years back indicated their uneasy association with the BJP. Two ministers in the Yogi ensemble indicated the uneasiness of the lower classes by their defection. The Bahujan Samaj Party general secretary claimed support of the upper castes also after the party chief Mayavati declared her determination to stay away from the state power game. She had won power in 2007 with support of the combination and had lost power in 2012 with the upper strata straying away from her due to their disenchantment.