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How has China become an awe-inspiring manufacturing powerhouse backed by crude steel capacity of 1.078 billion tonnes and aluminium smelting capacity of 45.19 million tonnes? Any number of dissertations on the subject analysing the economic and political factors propelling the country’s rapid industrialization since the late 20th century are available. All scholarly inquiries into the subject will credit the “economic miracle” to Deng Xiaoping, the unquestioned leader of the People’s Republic of China for over a decade up to November 1989. The architect of modern China created favourable condition for foreign investment through an “open door policy.” China’s ascendance to being the world’s second largest economy is largely due to Deng era reforms.

As Terence McKenna said that culture is a mass hallucination, likewise the annual festival of Durga Puja is typically an immersive carnival of food, music, community get-togethers and cultural programmes that holds West Bengal in its thrall for five hedonistic days and nights. With Kolkata as its epicentre, the jamboree is celebrated all over the globe – from Lucknow to London, and from Bahrain to the Bahamas. Bengalis everywhere revel in gaiety during these days. This year, the festival spans from October 9 to 12.

Ministerial utterances on policy matters are pointers to a profound shift but sometimes drops more than a broad hint about an impending change in the socio-political landscape if utterance of France' s interior minister, Bruno Retailleau on immigration is anything to go by.

LONDON: Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is not Tony Blair’s. The lessons from its troubled conference last week demonstrate this in multiple ways. Some mark positive differences from the last Labour government. Then TUC leader John Monks said unions were treated as “embarrassing elderly relatives” by Blair; now they are clearly influential actors within Labour, helping to shape legislation — most obviously in the case of the New Deal for Workers employment rights package.

SEBI would be a nice name for a new range of washing machines. The brand name is short, sweet and has good connect with its namesake market regulator, which has by far excelled in the act of cleaning. Additionally, the new range may not require a detergent, as the machine by itself is good enough to clean any dirt, when required.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, leader of the Janata Vimukti Perumana (JVP) and the National Peoples’ Power (an alliance of Left and progressive parties) won the presidential elections held on September 21 in Sri Lanka. He polled 57,40,179 votes (42.3 per cent) in these elections, which is a significant increase from the 4,18,553 votes (3.16 per cent) he could obtain in 2019. This is a historic victory, as, for the first time, a Left leader won the presidency in Sri Lanka.

The Chinese economy is seeing deflation —that is, prices are really falling in real time— for 23 months straight. This has really raised the concerns of the Chinese political bosses which was reflected in the central bank move on Tuesday.

September 25, 2024, is the tenth birth anniversary of Make in India. It was launched on September 25, 2014. PM Narendra Modi government has tried its best to promote ease of business in the country, but finding the scheme not getting desired momentum, it decriminalized 183 provisions in 2023, in the penultimate year 2023 its second term. Now in its third term, the Centre has identified 300 more provisions to be decriminalized to further promote ease of business in India, in the hope that it would make the country the manufacturing hub of the world.

India has extended an invitation to political and military opponents of Myanmar junta for a seminar in New Delhi. It is a signal of recalibrating Indian stance towards Myanmar conflict. It is a pointer to the fact that Indian policy towards its neighbour is undergoing a subtle but a transformational shift. For the invitation apparently innocuous, reflects geopolitical concerns and internal security interests.

The general secretary of the CPI-M, Sitaram Yechury, who passed away on September 12 at the age of 72, defied all the clichés one associates with hardcore “commies”. From his appearance to his demeanour, he was like “one of us”. Meaning, he didn’t shove his ideology down anybody’s throat, nor was he judgmental about capitalists in his group. He was evolved enough to accept diverse points of view, without compromising on his own political beliefs.