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If Checkpoint Charlie in West Berlin was the epicentre of the Cold War between NATO and the Soviet Union's Warsaw Pact satellite states, Ukraine is the crucible of the geopolitical confrontation between the West and Putin's Russia.

LUCKNOW: Will the mega road show of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi spin the magic for BJP in the holy city and other constituencies in seventh and last phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh on March 7?

In the Uttar Pradesh’s assembly elections, the overriding perception is that Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is the man most likely to benefit from electoral tide.

New Delhi: Ramkumar Ramanathan overwhelmed lowly ranked Christian Sigsgaard while Yuki Bhambri accounted for higher ranked Mikael Torpegaard in straight sets as India took a commanding 2-0 lead over Denmark in the Davis Cup World Group Playoff 1 tie, at Delhi Gymkhana Club here on Friday.

Aamby Valley, Maharashtra: Carding one under 71 in the last round, Mysore girl Pranavi Urs rode her fine form to win the fourth leg of the Hero Women’s Pro Golf Tour by five shots at the Aamby Valley Greens Golf Course here on Friday.

New Delhi: Yakshika and Vidhi gave power-packed performances to move into the junior girls’ semi-finals with identical victories (5-0) at the Asian Youth & Junior Boxing Championships in Amman, Jordan on Friday.

New Delhi: With four red cards slapped on him, race walker Amit Khatri’s dream of finishing among top fine went up in smoke as he was disqualified in U20 10km race in the World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships Muscat (Oman) on Friday.

The security concerns of Russia arising from Ukraine’s intentions of joining NATO have been widely discussed in the media. But the IMF’s link with Ukraine which is a parallel issue has scarcely received much attention. The IMF, as is well-known, “opens up” economies around the world for the penetration of metropolitan capital by making them “investor-friendly” through the adoption of a host of anti-workingclass and anti-people (“austerity”)measures; and such “opening up “typically involves the taking over of natural resources of the countries and also their land areas by metropolitan capital. The mechanism that the IMF typically uses towards this end is the imposition of “conditionalities” forgiving loans to countries that are in need of balance of payments support.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury has termed the Russian military action in Ukraine as ‘invasion’ and has been unequivocal in mentioning that ’A full-fledged military operation on such a big scale mounted by Russia, whatever may be the provocations and perceived security threats, is not the way to resolve issues. An immediate ceasefire and recourse to diplomatic talks and negotiations must be undertaken.’

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine rages on and a catastrophe looks near than ever, Twitter is where the latest news, analysis, and perspectives can be found. These are coming from the powerful and the most cerebral people of our time. It’s fascinating and engrossing to read the tweets, for example, from Balaji Srinivasan. Wikipedia describes him as a serial entrepreneur and essayist. For this out-and-out American intellectual and entrepreneur of Indian origin, the Wikipedia description is way too inadequate for the public persona that he holds.