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The Mumbai Police has wound a complicated path in its quest to discipline Republic TV, struggling to get a foothold, gaining it and then, inexplicably, losing it at that exact time when it looked like the cops were on top and the journalist was down in the dumps with his face in the mud! And now, in the unending Republic TV-Mumbai Police saga, with yet another twist to the narrative, it clouds the mind to fully comprehend that, at the end of the day, it all boiled down to what – an ugly war for supremacy between two media outlets – one established and hoary in age, the other way considerably younger and on the go with whatever it takes.

As the year 2020 drawing to a close, silver lines on the horizon have become visible. Some hopes have germinated on the economic front. India has somewhat been emboldened by her prospect to become the fifth-largest economy again by 2025, and third-largest by 2030. However, the stark present reality is distressing. India has lost its position of fifth largest country this year. The country fell two steps down the ladder of Human Development Index (HDI) and ranked far below at 131st among 189 nations of the world in 2019, and then came the dark year of 2020 with its most severe blow causing total shutdown. In place of economic growth, we have economic contraction by 8 per cent this year as has been revised a little upward from 9 per cent by IMF recently. With greatly dwindled income, deteriorated health, and education at halt, people are reeling under distress as never before.

Goa: Kerala Blasters dished out a complete performance as they edged Hyderabad 2-0 to secure their first win of the Hero Indian Super League season at the GMC Stadium, here on Sunday.

Fatorda, Goa: When Bengaluru and Jamshedpur face each other in the Hero Indian Super League at the Fatorda Stadium on Monday, one thing is for sure — the contest will be alive right until the final whistle.

The first Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was more of a dreamer and less of a visionary. He did not have around either Raghuram Rajan or his book ‘The Three Pillars’ to tell him on equal need and importance of three pillars, the state, the market and the community to make a better nation. He laid foundation for better and independent political institutions. He was not equally liberal with the economic structure to allow the market to contribute strength in building the Indian economic at the required pace.

Goa: Riding on German midfielder Matti Steinmann's brace East Bengal rallied to draw 2-2 with Chennaiyin in the Hero Indian Super League at the Tilak Maidan here on Saturday.

Goa: Kerala Blasters, still looking for their first victory in the Hero Indian Super League, will be aiming to end the year with three points when they clash against Hyderabad at the GMC Stadium, here on Sunday.

Kalantar Dainik, Bengali morninger of Communist Party of India in Kolkata, hit newsstands – albeit select ones – on 26 December , the 96th birthday of a first communist party on Indian soil. The CPI – carrying forward the unanimous decision of undivided CPI – continues firmly to claim that the party was set up on this day in 1925 at the Kanpur Communist Conference. On the contrary, CPI(M) asserts that the CPI was born in Tashkent on 17 October 1920 by a group of émigré Indian revolutionaries led by M N Roy, Abani Mukherjee, among others.

The much publicised December 25 meeting of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi with the agitating farmers was part of the design to project Modi as the modern day statesman and at the same time malign the agitation rather than being an honest exercise to find a solution to the impasse. The importance of the exercise for the image makeover of Modi could be realised from the simple fact that 54 union ministers were deployed across the country to test the peoples’ mood and clear any misgiving on the farm laws.

There is no crystal ball to gaze and forecast what is in store for the rest of the century. But 2020 will be marked in history as a real turning point and one of the worst in memory for all contemporaries. We had approached 2020 with a lot of hopes, although the stock market exuberance had camouflaged the underlying stress in the financial sector, agrarian crisis, rising unemployment and above all a complete drying up of demand in the economy.