View Articles

New Delhi: Indian Women’s 10M Air Pistol team beat Hungary 16-12 in the bronze medal to earn the second medal for the country at the World Cup Shooting in Osijek, Croatia, on Friday.

Every year on 25 June, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders recall the crime against democracy and humanity that former prime minister late Indira Gandhi and the Congress committed by imposing the Emergency and sending hundreds—they would say thousands—of Opposition leaders, especially those who belonged to the then Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS), the prequel of the BJP, to prison.

Vaccination against COVID-19 suffers from inequality and sluggishness. Inequality in such an extent that 80 per cent of the vaccines have been administered in the high and upper-middle-income countries, as against 19.7 per cent in rest of the middle income group, and only 0.3 per cent in the low-income countries, while sluggishness is such that at this pace the pandemic will continue to rip through the Global South, leaving the whole world highly vulnerable for another 57 years. The failure of nationalism, competition, and charity as concepts have never been so stark, as the world is witnessing at present. Unless nationalism, competition, and charity retreat and make room for internationalism, cooperation, and solidarity, the world would be fast forward to meet an unprecedented human tragedy in the history of mankind.

In terms of economic policy, the Modi government must be perhaps the most conservative in the world. During the entire period of the pandemic when millions of people lost their incomes and livelihood support, most governments around the world provided universal cash transfers to the people, but not the Modi government. True, many other third world countries too did not provide such universal cash transfers, but their hands were tied; they had contracted heavy external debt and were enjoined to austerity by agencies like the IMF that helped them roll over their debt.

The other day somebody wrote that the only party that stood between Narendra Modi and a third term as Prime Minister was the Indian National Congress; of course with the cautionary note that Wayanad MP and former Congress President Rahul Gandhi should understand the enormity of the situation and behave accordingly.

In the face of a vicious Republican-orchestrated assault on democratic rights and working-class economic gains, states dominated by Democratic governors and legislatures representing broad multi-racial governing coalitions are pulling in the opposite direction—going all out to expand rights.

The meeting of the eight opposition parties held on June 22 at the NCP president Sharad Pawar's residence has led to more confusion rather than facilitating the process of consolidation of the unity of the parties that are opposed to the continuation of the BJP in power at the centre. The move was primarily initiated by Yashwant Sinha, the recently installed vice president of the Trinamool Congress who wanted to put himself in the national limelight under the shadow of the Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who is seen by many as the alternative to Narendra Modi in the coming Lok Sabha polls.

Pawan Mondal (28), a resident of Dakshin Barasat in South 24 Parganas district, is a bricklaying mason by profession. In the lockdown period of the Covid-19 second wave, Mondal along with his two sons and his wife are running from pillar to post to get some benefit under the cess fund meant for welfare of the construction workers. But he has had no luck.

With no prospects of an early end to the ongoing civil strife in Myanmar, the exodus of Burmese refugees to India’s Northeastern states has swelled from a trickle to a torrent. As of now, various media reports suggest that the number of people crossing over to Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland within only five months may have crossed 16,000 and counting. More than the head count, it is the overall financial/administrative /diplomatic fallout of the situation in Myanmar that plagues the NDA II Government.

When the rivers in the country began swelling with corpses, they got buried in the shallow sand graves. Soon in the strong wind, sand moved and then came the thieves who took away the last sheet. In the glaring sun they all lay exposed. We all have lost our voices, and stare at the calamity that has befallen us. The dead have lost count, they remain unsighted, innumerable. They are among those for whom no report speaks. In death also they are excess in the society.