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Justice GT Nanavati, retired Supreme Court judge, died December 18, a couple of days before Rahul Gandhi said he hadn’t ever heard of “lynching before 2014”! With that Rahul comment, the ground shifted underfoot of those media who the Wayanad Congress MP called the “government’s Dalal—godi media”. Republic TV and Times Now Navbharat responded like they had been whacked in the butt for committing sacrilege.

In a remarkable judgment Madras High Court’s justice G R Swaminathan this week upheld a persons’ ‘right to be funny’ and extolled the virtues of a new duty for the citizens: the ‘duty to laugh’.

Electoral reform, in true sense of the term, in India remains a dream for poor, common, and innocent people of the country. What happened in the name of several reforms is exclusion of the poor, effected, for example, by enhancing even the security deposits that a poor person cannot dream of to afford. Delinking elections from money power is not on the cards, while it would be the real inclusive electoral reform. What the Modi led BJP government is pushing would create more problems than it would solve for common man, federalism, and the autonomy of institutions in the country.

Among the bills taken up for discussion during the ongoing winter session of parliament, the Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill, 2019, is making some noises in relevant quarters. After two years of deliberations, the JPC report on PDP Bill was tabled in both houses of parliament on December 16. The JPC recommendations on the PDP Bill include 3 important and potentially controversial elements.

Indians are naive and gullible to such an extent that they are carried away even by microscopic lies of the politicians. It is an open secret that Narendra Modi and BJP diligently follow the diktats of the RSS. The policies and programmes of the Modi government are framed and decided by the Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat. This has been made explicitly clear by none else but by Modi himself when he did not inform about his decision to withdraw the farm bills even to his cabinet colleagues and BJP. Only one person knew about it and he was Bhagwat.

Modi, Yogi and Akki! The last is Akhilesh Yadav— the ‘lal topi’ up against the ‘kamal ka phool’. The Samajwadi Party chief doesn’t ordinarily spill wisdom. But when he does, he does not do it for effect—he does it for keeps! Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son is nobody’s fool. On the contrary, he trades gem for gem, coining his own wordage, taking a leaf out of Modi’s book, and Modi is the reigning wordsmith in the electoral roulette.

As expected, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) swept the 2021 Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), the results of which were available on Tuesday afternoon. Trinamool decisively won over 90 per cent of the 144 wards. The margins separating the TMC victors from their nearest opposition challengers from the BJP, Congress and the Left parties ranged from 4000 to over 10,000 in most seats.

The contour of politics in Jammu & Kashmir is set to change again the next year 2022. The J&K Delimitation Commission has set December 31 as the last day for submitting objections on its proposal, and as per the brief the Commission is expected to provide its final recommendation by April 2022. If the promised restoration of statehood for this newly formed Union Territory comes through, which is most likely in the backdrop of the progress on delimitation exercise, Jammu & Kashmir will undergo a new era of politics.

It has been two years since Covid-19 emerged in China and spread worldwide. Since then, the globe has faced upheaval. As we enter 2022, what does the crystal ball say about the covid? Will the New Year see the end of the pandemic, or will it continue through the year? The short answer is the COVID-19 pandemic is not over yet and is likely to continue through 2022. With unpredictable outbreaks still occurring worldwide, it is difficult to predict the end of the pandemic.

Throughout its history, India has accepted refugees, including Jews escaping persecution, Sri Lankan Tamils, Tibetans, and Afghans, all escaping violence. However, India’s treatment of the Rohingya has been conspicuously different. The country is now home to approximately 40,000 Rohingya, of whom only around 16,500 have been registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).