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There is a growing realization and appreciation in large swathes of the country that Priyanka Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have together been leading a resurgence in Congress fortunes in recent days and weeks; Priyanka Gandhi in particular, especially after MoS (Home) Ajay Kumar Mishra ‘Teni’ and his son Ashish Kumar Mishra dashed to the ground Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s hopes for a second term in office with their dangerous antics in Lakhimpur-Kheri.

The Gandhi family has established its claim over the Congress party at the CWC meeting on October 16 as seen by Sonia Gandhi’s assertive speech. Her message to the Party in simple words is that "we are the Gandhis, and we rule as long as we want. Challenge us now." As expected, not even a whimper, was heard from the Group of 23 rebels, which made much noise in the media for months on the need for full-time leadership and organizational elections. As expected, the CWC unanimously expressed confidence in the Gandhi family. The CWC meeting went off as per Gandhi's script.

India’s commerce department seems to be out of touch with the government’s intentional tax deals — bilateral or multilateral. In recent times, India has lost all tax cases against MNCs in international courts and tribunals. It also lost large undisclosed sums in fighting these hopeless litigations at home and abroad for years through appeals and counter appeals. Earlier this year, it suffered a massive face loss as a small British firm, Cairn Energy, threatened to seize Indian government assets after a $1.2 billion award in its favour in a long-running corporate tax case.

New Delhi: Former junior World No. 1, Yuki Bhambri will spearhead Delhi Binny’s Brigade challenge in the star-studded,eight-team competitive field in the 3rd edition of the Tennis Premier League, to be played at the Celebration Club, Andheri, Mumbai from December 9 to 14.

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) controversy between Tamil Nadu and the centre is yet another example of deteriorating centre-state relations and to polarise politics. There are merits and demerits in centralised common entrance test for joining a medical course just as having common indirect tax like GST. Standardisation is good as it seeks to bring in uniformity but unfortunately in the implementation of such policies there is a big gap because of varying standards and level of education and development of different states in the country. As a result the standardisation that is being sought to be achieved gets derailed. This also breeds new forms of corruption, which gets added to existing ones.

On the yardstick of Hunger, Modi Government is performing worse than its predecessors, neighbouring countries, and majority of the countries of the world. One can see it through the data of Global Hunger Indices for several years in succession that contradict all the tall claims and big talks of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his government and his fan club. It has put them in defensive mode and hence they levelled the ranking and methodology “devoid of ground reality and fact”, though the data were in fact already in public domain in the form of FAO, UNICEF, and UN compilations, and were not only uncontested earlier but also relied upon.

It is a classic case of killing the messenger when the content of the message is unpalatable. Faced with the ignominy of being ranked behind Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal in the 2021 Global Hunger Index at 101 out of a worst possible 116, the Modi government has challenged the conclusions drawn by the publishers of the World Hunger Report, saying it is ‘devoid of ground reality and facts’. The government’s embarrassment is understandable, but that does not take away the seriousness of the country’s situation.

Unprecedented. Unpredictable. A “perfect storm” of high demand, high global prices, and extended monsoons. All of these are common descriptors of how India came to have just four days of coal supplies left at power plants. These are all convenient but incomplete explanations. More than plain bad luck coming together in a perfect storm or any single issue, there was a wide gap in planning, coordination, and risk-taking. This problem also didn’t happen overnight or even in a month or two – it was many months in the making. Until we recognise these issues, this could happen again, and more so as India embarks on a high renewable energy future where uncertainty grows and planning becomes even more complex.

An electric power crisis is being predicted in India. And at a time when the installed generation capacity is more than the maximum demand. The reason can be traced to the policies pursued by the Government since 1990.

I have just finished seeing the nine episode South Korean social drama ‘Squid Game” released in Netflix on September 17 this year. Already it has become the biggest hit of Netflix productions in 90 countries covering 111 million viewers. My experience of viewing the film has been mesmerising. In recent months, I have seen lot of foreign films in streaming platforms, but I can never recall any such impact.