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Regular workers’ real wages have been declining by one per cent every year under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s regime. However, BJP’s election manifesto and Modi’s guarantees have left this issue untouched, and used the word “wages” only twice, while giving the guarantee of periodic review of national floor wages. There is no guarantee of protection from declining real wages.

The obnoxious speech of Narendra Modi on April 21 at Banswara, Rajasthan was notable for its vicious attack on Muslims and demonising any redistribution policy as a handing over of the gold and property of Hindus to the “infiltrators”. The bigotry displayed in this speech has understandably attracted widespread condemnation. But there is another aspect of the speech that exposes the extreme rightwing view of Modi and the BJP which results in the visceral hatred for any proposal for redistribution of wealth and incomes to tackle the high degree of inequality that exists in India.

In Modi’s India there are no pocket-boroughs, says BJP's diehard cadre. Except Wayanad in Kerala, which is ‘Rahul Gandhi’s pocket-borough’. Not Amethi, which Rahul gave up to Smriti Irani in 2019 and doesn't want anymore. A couple of months ago, Sonia Gandhi fled Gandhi family pocket-borough Raebareli, which will now send Rahul Gandhi to the Lok Sabha, another among a string of Nehru-Gandhi MPs elected from the constituency. Wayanad or Raebareli, which one will be Rahul Gandhi’s pocket-borough?

The death of the prominent peasants leader of the country Atul Kumar Anjaan at the wee hours of Friday, May 3 has come as a big shock to the farmers organisations and the Left movement in the country. Atul, the national secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the general secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha, was only 70 when he breathed his last in a Lucknow hospital.

US President Joe Biden is receiving criticism from many groups for describing India and Japan as "xenophobic" because they do not desire an influx of immigrants. This has raised concerns about a possible diplomatic mistake, considering the United States' enhanced relations with these Asian countries as part of its strategy to counter China.

India lives in her villages. Though not often taken into consideration like many other sayings of Mahatma Gandhi, the powers that be at the Centre have paid its share of lip service to the residents of the villages- the farmers.

The 50th anniversary congress on the New International Economic Order concluded in Havana on May 1 giving a call to the nations belonging to the Global South to reform the world system by changing the pattern of governance in the international bodies and brining more equity in the economies. The three day conference drew a roadmap for a global South insurgency to remake the world system.

Narendra Modi during his campaign for the Prime Ministership in 2013 and early months of 2014 focused mainly on corruption of the UPA-2 government in the last two years of its tenure and promised to the Indian voters a corruption-free government in 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The Congress stuck by the developments related to 2-G telecom spectrum scam suffered the defeat leading to the taking over of the Prime Minister’s position by the fighter against corruption Narendra Modi.

No, it is not a simple 'unusual & worrying' case. The allegation levelled by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, that the BJP has hatched a plan to switch EVMs being used in the Lok Sabha polls with the 1.9 million machines went missing in 2019, certainly cannot be outright rejected as a simple case of speculation. Mamata, of course, did not directly name CEC as the BJP’s cohort; but her allegation nevertheless made it abundantly clear that this has been done by the EC at the behest of BJP, especially Narendra Modi.

Lok Sabha election in Chhattisgarh will conclude with polling in the rest 7 constituencies in the third phase on May 7. Election campaigns are at its peak. The contest is chiefly between the BJP and the Congress, and there seems to be very close contests between their candidates in almost half of the constituencies. Obviously, the election outcome will be laden with some surprises, since Congress seems to be recovering some of its lost grounds to much frustration of the BJP.