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The pandemic alas is not yet over, but there are no economic disruptions in the current fiscal year in the form of lockdowns or workers’ absence. The economy’s performance therefore can no longer be attributed to the prevalence of the pandemic; whatever it is, it is caused by economic factors.

Kolkata: Lakhmehar Pardesi carded 74 and with a two-round total of at 5-over 145 remained the sole leader at the 14th Leg of the Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour at the Tollygunge Club here Thursday.

There was no last minute reprieve. The men were in the pickup truck that kept winding the narrow road climbing up slowly. Unarmed, each of them saw the guns flickering, and in one single moment the horror swept them away for ever. Soon, all of them, drenched in blood, were left dead, excepting two, still struggling for life. Miners in Tiru valley coal fields, they were residents of Oting village in Mon district of Nagaland where live Konyak Nagas. Those who killed them were para commandos of Indian army. They were based in Jorhat, tried to ambush those said to be insurgents moving in the area. Information came from army intelligence. Yet the bloody initiative had its gaps.

While the number of children hungry, out of school, abused, living in poverty or forced into marriage is going up, the number of children with access to healthcare, vaccines, sufficient food and essential services is going down globally. The widespread impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to deepen increasing poverty, entrenching inequality and threatening the rights of children like never before.

The lousiest trick the Devil can pull on God’s children is convince them the Devil does not exist. Sacked Police Inspector Sachin Vaze convinced Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and the Maha Vikas Aghadi Government to reinstate him in the Mumbai Police. It took a murder and a body thrown in the Thane Creek to dispel the notion. Now, Vaze’s mentor—ex-Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh—has convinced the Supreme Court to grant him immunity from arrest.

The killing of 14 civilians in Mon, Nagaland by a special force of the Assam Rifles has brought into sharp relief the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), a lawless law that enables the security forces to act with impunity, which has led to atrocity after atrocity on the civilian population in the North-East. Eight young men, who were coal miners, were travelling in a van when they were ambushed by a special force, who were purportedly targeting armed insurgents. The killing of six of the miners led to protests by the local people, which resulted in eight more deaths due to firing by the armed forces.

In India, political scenarios change very fast. In 1984 Lok Sabha elections, the ruling Congress secured more than 400 seats while the BJP’s tally fell into its lowest two. But the dream rule of the Congress Party did not last for more than two years. From 1987 onwards, the Bofors issue haunted the Rajiv Gandhi government leading to its defeat in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections. Former Finance Minister of Rajiv’s ministry V. P Singh led the new Government of his Party with support from both the BJP and the Left from outside.

Not a day passes these days without the news of one global Indian or the other having done something remarkable. The latest is the story of Indian origin American physician Anil Menon, who has been included in a group of ten to become astronauts for future NASA missions. A lieutenant colonel with the US Air Force, 45-year old Menon is of Indian descent, though born to a Ukrainian mother, and SpaceX's first flight surgeon, helping launch the company's first humans to space during NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission and building a medical organisation to support the human system during future missions.

Post Bengal Assembly polls 2021, the CPI(M) conceded that its branding of the ruling Trinamool Congress(TMC) as a tricky, undeclared ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)on some major issues, had backfired. Left parties saw the TMC as the Trojan horse within the opposition camp. They pointed to the apparent hostility of both parties to the working class, their alleged indifference to the plight of poor peasants, not to mention their propensity to overlook gross corruption on part of prominent leaders in their own ranks.

What is happening with the Bharatiya Janata Party Members of Parliament, why are many of them absent from Parliament? None other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi noticed this trend and was compelled to speak about it at a BJP Parliamentary Board meeting. It wasn’t just cursory mention of the “phenomenon”, but—per certain BJP MPs who did not want to be named—there was a note of concern in the Prime Minister’s tone and tenor.