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A new United Nations report sets out a stark message on the state of the climate crisis, raising pressure on governments in the run-up to the crucial COP26 summit in Glasgow this November.

Farmers have begun ‘Modi Gaddi Chhodo’ (Modi Quit the Seat of Power) from today, the 9th of August, 2021. It is most likely to impact national politics, beginning with Punjab and Uttar Pradesh where elections to the state legislative assemblies are due early next year by March and May 2022 respectively.

The people of Bengal reposed their faith in the leadership of Mamata Banerjee, struck a severe blow to the BJP in the electoral battle of 2021 and in the process also catapulted her as the most potent alternative face to Narendra Modi. This happened at a time when the country was witnessing an upsurge of the rightist forces led by the RSS and BJP.

On 15 August 2021 when we celebrate 75th day of independence from the colonial rule, it is important to review what we have achieved in these 74 years. Even though health forms an important issue to be discussed but not much has been talked about health in the debates. This time as we have passed through serious COVID pandemic crisis, there is concern in the minds of the people about healthcare situation in the country.

India opened and closed its participation in the Tokyo Olympics in a dramatic and classy fashion like of which country has never done before in these Quadrangular Games.

It is not so much the threat from the BJP that has made the Congress bestir itself as the possibility of Mamata Banerjee emerging as the front-runner in the race for leading the opposition camp against the ruling party at the centre.

Like it or not, the Covid-19 pandemic has been a blessing in disguise for India’s fast growing porn film industry, reaching practically every household using 4G cellphones and computers, desk or laptop. For India's millions, forced to stay at home under lockdown conditions, porn films are seen by many as a big entertainer. Anyway, watching pornography on personal devices is legal in India under a Supreme Court verdict in July, 2015. The Supreme Court also orally remarked that it cannot stop an adult from exercising his fundamental right to personal liberty to watch porn within the privacy of his room

Union Government in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is not keen to enact a law to prevent mob lynching and hate crimes in keeping with the judgment of July 17, 2018 by the Supreme Court of India in Tehseen Poonawala case. MHA maintains there is no direction in the impugned judgment to this effect, it is learnt officially. However, the MHA shifts the responsibility to the States and Union Territories who administer Police and Public Order in the scheme of the Constitution of India to deal with mob lynching and hate crimes. Hence, anti-mob lynching and anti- hate crime law not the baby of the Centre. Simultaneously, the Centre has not allowed the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) to record incidents of hate crimes for fear of exposure of its and BJP IT Cell’s and Sangh ruled states’ complicity in hate mongering together with the so called captive mainstream media as also on social media.

LUCKNOW: The mega success of cycle yatra of Samajwadi Party has boosted the moral of the party leaders and workers who waited so long for this event. With his cycle yatra Akhilesh Yadav cleverly played the Brahmin card as it was deliberately organised on the birth anniversary of late Samajwadi Party leader Janeshwar Mishra known as Mini Lohia.

COVID-19 has taken a toll on the Indian economy. The size of the economy (read, GDP) shrank from $2.87 trillion in 2019-20 to $2.66 trillion in 2020-21. GDP growth also slowed from around 4 per cent in 2019 to -8 per cent in 2020. Starting from a low base, this year initially the economy was expected to grow at 9 per cent but data got revised downward, and the economy is now expected to grow at 6 per cent. The wider implication of this slow growth is going to fall on income generation and income distribution. Smaller number of job opportunities are getting created. Society is also becoming more unequal; the super-rich are becoming richer and everyone else poorer. The ballooning wealth of Mr Adani and Mr Ambani is a testimony to that fact.