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Prime Minister Narendra Modi must be a very happy person today as his dream to make his home state Gujarat an epicentre of India’s economic development has finally come true. Modi has been relentlessly trying to make Gujarat the country’s choicest investment destination since he became the state’s chief minister in 2001. Development of a state does not come easy under India’s political system. No amount of enterprise, industrial infrastructure, proximity to raw materials and market matter if a state opposes the government at the centre. Few state leaders know this better than Modi, an advocate for “double engine growth” with a perfect centre-state political cum economic relation. Since 2014, his party has been ruling both the centre and Gujarat. Interestingly, Gujarat’s all-India ranking, based on per capita state domestic product (GSDP) went up from 12th in 2000-01 to 4th in 2021-22. Although the credit substantially goes to Gujarat’s highly ambitious businessmen, a strong support from the state and union governments has helped make it happen.

Pakistan’s new foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s speech at the foundation ceremony of Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad marks a complete hyphenation from his maternal grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who took over as the foreign minister in the early 1960s following the death of Mohammad Ali Bogra under the Chief Martial Law Administrator Field Marshal Ayyub Khan.. In the mid-1960s ,Bhutto gave a call for a thousand year war with India while Bilawal made a strong pitch for re-engaging with neighbours, stressing the imperative for communicating with not only the Indian government but addressing the people on ‘behalf of my country and our people’ as the foreign minister of Pakistan. Cutting ties with any country, (without naming, but meaning India) would not be beneficial for Islamabad which ‘ is already ‘internationally isolated and disengaged.”

Another thoughtless decision and the country is burning again. Knee jerk reactions by the government have not succeeded and the violent protests are continuing, gaining intensity by the hour and spreading to new territories. Beginning primarily in the north Indian states of UP and Bihar, the protest against Agnipath has spread to the south, with the region accounting for some of the worst violence in the current agitation. It is virtually a case of the government sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind.

The outcome of the recent round of elections for 75 Rajya Sabha seats offers significant political insight into lay of the land in India’s states and at the Centre, and highlights the institutional paradoxes at the heart of India’s bicameral Parliamentary system.

In the largest global review by WHO so far, nearly one in eight people have been found suffering with mental disorders while this ratio is one in seven for teenagers. The common conditions, such as depression and anxiety have even gone up by over 25 per cent during the first year of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020. The most vulnerable age group is 15-19, which suffers all sorts of mental disorders, which is a matter of great concern. The frightening data has triggered even WHO warning that has urged countries to get to grips with worsening condition in a backdrop in which a majority of the patients do not have access to any help or treatment.

On November, 2020 The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020 came into being, which was subsequently passed by the UP Legislative Assembly in 2021 as an Act. Under this Act, a person can’t change their religion without giving a prior notice to the district administration. In fact, a marriage where either of the parties have changed their religion without going through a thorough governmental scrutiny is void in the eyes of this law.

China could be entering choppy Middle Eastern waters. Multiple crises and conflicts will likely shape its relations with the region’s major powers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey.

June 19 Rahul Gandhi turns 52. And it called for a perspective on the life and times of Rahul Gandhi. Not everybody’s cup of tea, because Rahul Gandhi doesn’t leave much to the imagination. He is in a class all his own. First and foremost, Rahul Gandhi is not a ‘chaiwala’, his arrogance beats the best cup of tea. And he’s been accused of feeding biscuits to ‘Pidi’ from the same plate Himanta Biswa Sarma ate from, and ‘Pidi’ happens to be Rahul’s pet K9!

Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) is infested with frauds and abuses. Different kinds of frauds are being encountered, both in relation to the making of e-cards for beneficiaries and also the provisions of treatment by hospitals. Corruption in India’s National Health Insurance Scheme Ayusman Bharat scheme seems to be rampant.

Sun Tzu in the ‘Art of War’ (written in the 6th century BC) argues that a commander’s duty was to ensure that his subordinates conducted themselves in a civilised manner during an armed conflict.