View Articles

At first, it was the virus. Then came the vaccine. China has converted the pandemic into a great opportunity for economic expansion and international cooperation in pursuit of its strategy to become a strong imperial economic power in Asia and other parts of the world. Paradoxically, China has already entrapped India, which had, only a year ago, restricted investment and import flow from the People’s Republic (PRC). India, Asia’s third largest economy after China and Japan, has already buckled under the Chinese pressure to step up import and investment from its giant neighbour.

The first thing to understand about 2022 Presidential elections in France is that it probably won’t go as expected.The last two contests have made a mockery of pundits: around this time in 2016, center-right former PM Alain Juppé of Les Républicains (LR) was the odds-on favorite to succeed François Hollande. Instead, that fall, he lost his party’s primary to the more conservative François Fillon, opening up space in the center for Emmanuel Macron to sneak into the second round. By this time in the year in 2011, the widely expected challenger to Nicolas Sarkozy was former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn — but sexual assault allegations in New York abruptly derailed his political career, opening the door for Hollande to win the Socialist Party (PS) primary.

Currently a question is making rounds in the global political system; which block India would join? Whether it would be Chinese world order or align with the new order which the US president Joe Biden is trying to evolve.

Uddhav Thackeray, Chief Minister for 5 years, says Shiv Sena gadfly and Thackeray confidante Sanjay Raut, speaking for Uddhav Thackeray, and possibly for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, iterates Raut, has a “political message” for the state BJP Opposition but also to the constituents of the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA). The Saamna editor with a penchant for opening his mouth when required by Uddhav Thackeray, says that it’s just a rumour and nothing else that Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will be replaced midway through his five year term.

This most chaotic of democracies deserves kudos for the mobility of politicians – for the ‘aya ram’, and the ‘gaya ram’ joining this party and deserting that party. At the national level this has opened avenues for the likes of Prashant Kishor to think of stitching a coalition to evict Modi-Shah from Central Vista. The only thing to worry then is who will be Prime Minister, Mamata Banerjee or Sharad Pawar? Rahul Gandhi is ruled out of reckoning.

We usually come to listen to one simple refrain that Congress is gradually getting deviated from its ideology and it needs a major reform keeping conformity to the changing times. The leaders deserting the party often come out with the allegation that they have not been provided with the right opportunity and avenue to serve the party and the party is directionless.

Multi-dimensional pressure points that have forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi to change his ways half way through his second tenure shows exactly why he has been promoting the one-nation, one-election idea. Simultaneous elections to parliament and state assemblies would have given him peace of mind in the current turmoil, but the prospects of adverse results in crucial assembly elections, including the most important UP, leave him no option but to do some course correction, though reluctantly.

With the appointment of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, as Trinamool Congress’s all-India general secretary, yet another regional party in India has formally taken the dynastic route to political leadership. Mr Banerjee, a Member of Parliament, has been the de facto number two in the Trinamool Congress (TMC) for some years now; he also played a key role in the election campaign of 2021, bringing in consultant Prashant Kishor to the aid of the party after the 2019 Lok Sabha election debacle. But the de facto has now become de jure and the line of succession in the TMC is clear. Ms Banerjee’s chosen heir is Mr Banerjee.

Pedro Castillo, a rural teacher and union leader, has won the Peruvian elections with 50.179 per cent and a margin of approximately 60,000 votes (0.4 per cent). Keiko Fujimori, the candidate of the far-right and the daughter of ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori, has cried fraud and commenced a legal battle to overturn the result by demanding the annulment of over 200,000 votes across Peru’s rural regions. And while the current presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela have congratulated Castillo as the president-elect, Fujimori appears to be determined to seize power through a process similar to the coup that took place in Bolivia in November 2019.

Justice Krishna Iyer, in a landmark judgement, State of Rajasthan vs Balchand, 1977 laid down one of the basic rules of legal proceedings, i.e., to provide bail and avoid jail time for the accused. The judgement has laid the foundation for a more lenient justice system.