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As the farmers’ protests against the farm laws of 2020 completed six months on May 26, 2021, let us trace the trail of these laws and their basis.

India is not alone in worrying about the long term impact of the US troops’ pullout from Afghanistan. Dhaka also shares Delhi’s concern. In Bangladesh, the recent arrest of four youths, who were on their way to Afghanistan to enroll/fight as Islamic jihadists, confirms the abiding appeal of Islamic extremism among the impressionable young in South Asia. Dhaka-based reports say the youths were new recruits to join terrorist camps in Pakistan/Afghanistan, expected to go functional after the US ‘occupation army’ finally leaves.

There is no ambiguity about the nature and character of the legal war that is going on in Calcutta High Court. So far it appeared to be a war of attrition between the CBI and Mamata Banerjee on the arrest of TMC ministers and leaders. But now it has no inhibition; it is a class war, a battle between two ideologies.

Down with shock and grief we are today the carriers of our dead. Our rivers are swollen with Covid corpses. Ganges, the most beautiful gift of nature to us, is unsightly with the bodies floating all over not only in the flowing water but also on the sandy shores where they were buried irrespective of their caste, community and creed. Death has brought them together, though not in peace and bliss but with an unspeakable helplessness. The rot is setting in.

The union territory of Lakshadweep is a group of islands which are home to around 65,000 people. These quiet, peace-loving people are being subjected to a ruthless regime which seeks to deprive them of their way of life, livelihoods, food and cultural rights.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to interfere with the order of the Calcutta High Court placing four All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders Madan Mitra, Firhad Hakim, Subrata Mukherjee and Sovan Chatterjee, accused in the Narada sting case, under house arrest with liberty to continue official work as an interim measure.

Lakshadweep hates two men, and both happen to be Gujarati. Make that three men – Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and third, the most hated of them all, Lakshadweep administrator Praful Khoda Patel, whose one single thought every morning he wakes up, they say, is to find ways to make life miserable for the indigenous people of Lakshadweep.

In early 1994, the U.P. government announced the auctioning of 2,500 trees overlooking the Alakhnanda river in the upper reaches of what is now Uttarakhand. Lumberjacks arrived in Raini village to cut trees. A local girl saw them and informed the villagers. Women in large group came out and stopped the lumberjacks by hugging the trees. Three local women—Gaura Devi, Sudeshna Devi and Bahni Devi championed the cause. Through the days that followed, the women refused to leave the trees. That marked the beginning of chipko (hug) movement.

Farmers' agitation against three farm laws completes six months on May 26, the day on which Narendra Modi became Prime Minister of India seven years ago. It may be just a coincidence, but is politically significant as Black Day for all except Modi and his fan club. Observance as a Black Day by farmers is of course symbolic, but a reason enough for stirring conscience of a prime minister who had assured the country for 'doubling of farmers income by 2022’.

The second wave of the Covid-19 virus in the country has been very painful. The disturbing pictures of people grappling for oxygen and the darkness of the nights being lit by hundreds of funeral pyres in the over-crowded crematories — also resulting in dumping of bodies in the river Ganga — have shocked the people of the country. Although, dumping of bodies, rooted in traditions of some Hindus, in river Ganga isn’t a first — had occurred in the pre-Covid era too. But it can’t be denied that the present situation is also responsible for many floating bodies.