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The Supreme Court of India had recognised speedy trial as a fundamental right as far back as 1986. We know how that has worked out in reality over the three decades since. Cases continue to languish, pendency continues to worsen and an ever larger proportion of Indians continue to be deprived of the benefits of a well-functioning judicial system, dispensing timely justice.

BHOPAL: After witnessing and also tolerating most stinking, ugly and also hectic election campaign, voters of 28 Vidhan Sabha constituencies of Madhya Pradesh will exercise their franchise on November 3.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is keen about delivering COVID-19 vaccine free of cost to the people of India. At the state-level, Governments of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu promised delivery of free vaccines. Noble promise but is it doable?

What a paradox, the person who till yesterday was the public face of the NDA in Bihar to woe the voters and ensure the victory of the alliance at the polls, was looking towards the prime minister, Narendra Modi with the hope that he would carry him along.

The BJP will not be too pleased with the way the election scene has been panning out in recent times. After losing Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Delhi and suffering a jolt in Haryana, it is facing the prospect of yet another jolt in Bihar.

China’s latest objection to India’s proposed bi-lateral trade pact with Taiwan, the world’s 17th largest exporter and importer, on the ground that it is against the ‘One-China Principle’ is illogical and unacceptable. India’s trade volume with Taiwan increased by a whopping 20 percent, last year, amounting to over $7 billions. Major Taiwanese exports to India include integrated circuits, machinery and other electronic products. India is keen to attract Taiwanese investment particularly in hi-tech and labour-intensive industries. Lately, the government gave approval to a number of Taiwanese firms, including Foxconn Technology Group, Wistron Corp. and Pegatron Corp., to invest in India as it looks to attract investment worth $143 million for smartphone production over the next five years.

Narendra Modi did win the clear mandate of the Indian electorate in 2014 on his promise to accelerate the economic growth rate. In seven years of his regime delivered the reversal at the faster rate. The severe impact of the Lock down that pushed the economy to a total collapse will take several years to restore the economy to the level he had inherited. He spent huge sum on his globetrotting to lure capitalists to park their ventures in India. He could not induce a single one as he could not visualise that the capital was running away to escape the changed contours of democracy in America.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There is no getting away from the grim reality. The Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government finds itself in a deep political hole in the wake of the arrest of the Chief Minister’s former principal secretary M. Shivashankar and son of CPI(M) State secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, Bineesh Kodiyeri in quick succession. It will be a Herculean task for the Government to emerge from it unscathed.

Though very much part of Indo-Pacific, wannabe superpower People’s Republic of China cannot be part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or ‘Quad’ for the simple reason that the Quad has come to be because China came to be the way it came to be!

Japanese scientists in a study found a marked fall in Carbon Dioxide in China due to outbreak of Covid 19 right from February-March 2020, according to a paper published in Nature on 29 October 2020- ‘Detection of fossil-fuel CO2 plummet in China due to Covid 19 by observation at Hateruma’, authored by Yasmori Tohijima, Prabir K Patra, Yosuke Niwa, Hitoshi Mukai, Motoki Sasakawa and Toshinobi Machida, of whom Patra is an Indian atmospheric physicist.