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New Delhi: Lakshya Sen and Malvika Bansod will lead the new look Indian men’s and women’s teams in the Badminton Asia Team Championships to be played at Shah Alam, Malaysia from February 15-20.

Pune: With Prajnesh Gunneswaran and Arjun Kadhe getting wild card entries, there will be four Indians in the singles main draw at the Tata Open Tennis to be played at the Balewadi Stadium in Pune from January 31 to February 6.

In a speech in 1881, Wendell Phillips, the famous abolitionist and Native American rights activist, said that history is but “a series of lies agreed upon.” The expression originated in 18th century France, with both Voltaire and Napoleon Bonaparte, along with the American transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, expressing versions of it. In truth, however, history is much more than a series of “lies,” but these eminent figures highlight a seamier side of our past.

It’s an amazing thing to watch Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, currently playing on Apple TV+, after seeing a lot of other new American movies recently. The film’s beauty, ambition, and impact are so much greater than what even gets attempted these days, it’s discombobulating — like going up a mountain too fast and feeling faint from the sudden change in altitude.

The vexed debate on a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) predictably picks up around election time. The issue ties up conversations on women’s rights, secularism and national integration in a single albeit unconvincing narrative. National unity is emphasised vociferously by those who often carry a record of hate speech against religious minorities and remain chiefly responsible for provoking religious conflict. Women’s rights are spoken of, often not by women themselves. And secularism remains elastic in these debates; it could be invoked as a protection for minority rights to oppose a universal code and simultaneously be the vocabulary by which religious diversity is opposed. The constitutional commitment to a UCC is therefore impossible to comprehend as a ‘neutral’ law or policy in the absence of the political context in which it is summoned.

CHANDIGARH: Punjab unit of CPI has declared to contest more than twenty seats in Punjab elections, if Samyukat Samaj Morcha leadership does not listen to Left’s concerns and goes on cornering the left forces which determinedly fought in recent peasant struggle.

The New York Times has finally put the Narendra Modi Government on the dock. India officially bought Israeli spyware Pegasus as a part of the composite defence deal during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Israel in July 2017. For the last six months since the report about the surveillance by the spyware on Indians including politicians, journalists and human rights workers appeared in the media, the centre consistently denied the involvement of its agencies .The civil society activists including the journalists had to finally seek the intervention of the Supreme Court to probe this highly sensitive issue affecting the rights and privacy of the individuals. The apex court finally agreed to set up an expert commit in its order of October 27 last year.

The Jats of western Uttar Pradesh are bent on teaching the Bharatiya Janata Party a lesson in losing elections! For the last week and more, the ruling party at the Centre, and in Uttar Pradesh, has been doing its best to change the thinking of the Jat leadership, notably that of RLD leader Jayant Chaudhary who’s still to match the stature of Ajit Singh and Charan Singh, his father and grandfather, the latter the tallest of all the Jats.

The Supreme Court was expected to introduce some clarity on the issue of reservation for promotion in jobs for scheduled castes and tribes. In fact, the Centre had specifically requested the court to remove the prevailing confusion in the issue. But the court has not only failed to bring about greater clarity, it has preferred to add to the confusion by taking a non-committal approach.

RPN Singh’s exit from the Congress and entry into BJP has less to do with the Congress and more to do with BJP. Another leader leaving the Congress in Uttar Pradesh is hardly likely to make a difference to the party’s dim prospect in Uttar Pradesh. The fight is between Yogi Adityanath and Akhilesh Yadav. As of now, Congress may come a poor fourth, the third position likely to go to Mayawati’s BSP. Priyanka Gandhi has taken charge of U.P. poll and her vigorous campaign and charisma may win Congress few more seats than predicted.