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Well ahead of the Assam Assembly elections next year, the pre-poll campaign rhetoric exchanged between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its bête noire the pro-minority All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) is turning increasingly vicious. The situation has worsened after serious charges about the AIUDF leader, MP Mr. Badruddin Ajmal’s NGOs receiving Islamic terror funds, were made public.

India saw in 2021 at 12 am last night. This morning came the CNN message in the inbox “Brighter days are coming...” Yeah, well, hope so. For CNN, at least, after being battered with charges of “fake news” and other disparaging Trump-coinage for four unstoppable long years.

The kisans gathered around the Delhi border have unerringly put their fingers on the real issue confronting them, namely their very survival as peasants. Till now there was an arrangement in the country which, though crumbling under the impact of neo-liberalism, still kept the peasantry alive. The three laws brought in by the Modi government are meant to remove this life-line altogether. These three laws thus carry the neo-liberal agenda in this sphere to its limit. This is also why there can be no meeting ground between the protesting kisans and the government, within the ambit of these laws; they simply have to be repealed.

As the year 2021 begins leaving behind 2020 — the year battered world over by Covid pandemic, the left and the democratic forces of India declare that our struggle for a new India where the dreams of freedom are fulfilled, would continue. In New Year 2021, naturally we look back to the previous year when we had experienced something unusual in the history of humankind. Though bitter and long-lasting, it underlined the fact that the human race would always be able to overcome the odds with the support of science and feeling of oneness.

Kanyakumari: About one and a half months back, country's first-ever international medal winning para cyclist Aditya Mehta alongside members of para cycling team began pedalling from Kashmir with a charity mission to raise money and create awareness about para sports across India.

New Delhi: Chief coach Graham Reid and Captain Manpreet Singh have hailed Hockey Team's mental toughness in tumultuous year asserting that players are close to the fitness levels that they showcased in international matches in February 2020.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is playing flute in support of the corporates even as the farmers’ ‘Delhi Chalo’ agitation fire has engulfed the national capital. The prime minister who got defeated morally in front of the unprecedented historic struggle of farmers has now turned towards the Left in Kerala. He is alleging that the Opposition, in particular the left parties, are misleading and misdirecting the farmers. In fact, the prime minister and the central government are misleading and misdirecting crores of our farmers and masses.

Warning by the WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyeses for the need to make greater investment in Public Health system so that ‘world is better prepared to meet the future pandemics’ must be taken seriously. He has further stressed that ‘public health system with all – of – government and all – of – society one health approach is essential to make the world safer for our children to inherit’. For a sustainable world we need better public health.

Drag discussion and force them wilt. This is the primary strategy of the Modi government. The prime minister Narendra Modi and his ministers are aware that the farmers will not retreat even for a centimetre from their stand of repeal of the three laws and legalise the MSP, even though they have been holding meetings with the protesting farmers. If they were really concerned of the miseries and plights of the farmers they should have acceded to their demands.

The Latin term `annus horribilis’ (horrible year) has been widely and understandably used to define the year 2020 which had just ended. This is a natural description of an unprecedented year, which has seen a global pandemic – the corona virus pandemic – the comparable scale of which happened a full century ago when the “Spanish flu” caused worldwide havoc in 1918-1919.