IPA Special
Kazakhstan Fears It May Be Putin’s Next Stop After Ukraine
By James M Dorsey With Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s borders, it’s not only Ukrainians who worry about what President Vladimir Putin may have in store for them. It’s Kazakhs too. For now, Kazakhs don’t have to be immediately concerned about Russian troop movements. What unsettles them is years...
Poll On Schedule Is A Sure-Shot Superspreader
By Kalyani Shankar Many people doubt whether it is necessary to hold the upcoming Assembly polls in the poll-bound states next month or postpone, as the Allahabad High Court has suggested. During the earlier round of elections this year, another court- the Madras High Court- had held the Election...
Samajwadi Party Is Catching Up With BJP In Election Campaign In Uttar Pradesh
By Pradeep Kapoor LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party national President Akhilesh Yadav is giving tough fight to ruling BJP in assembly polls which is evident from sharp attack by top BJP leaders during campaign meetings in different parts of Uttar Pradesh during recent weeks. Massive turn out during Vijay rath yatra...
In Uttar Pradesh Poll Campaign, Competition Is On Proving Who Is Better Hindu
By Sushil Kutty Yogi Adityanath, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, has discovered he is ‘Hindu’ and has told it to the world, too, especially the electorate of Uttar Pradesh, which is going to polls and the Yogi may or may not continue to rule Uttar Pradesh if he fails to...
Gross Bank Credit Deployment Improves A Little But Still Lopsided
By Dr Gyan Pathak Gross Bank Credit in India has witnessed only a little improvement compared to last year. The latest data release by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) shows that both food and non-food credit deployment grew by only 7 per cent during November 2020- November 2021...
Raising Minimum Legal Age Of Marriage For Women, Is A Welcome Step
By Jeeval Chadha On December 16, the union government decided to raise the minimum legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21. Pursuant to this, the Union Cabinet introduced a bill of amendment to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 in the Indian parliament. It aims...
German War Hawks Beat The Drum For War On Russia
By Victor Grossman and John Wojcik BERLIN: Political leaders in Germany are using the results of the recent September elections here to build support for the anti-Russia hysteria being pushed now by NATO and the U.S. The armament makers and militarists in Germany are backing the Pentagon’s dangerous push...
A Year Of Struggle In Europe And Victory In Latin America
By Tom Blackburn Another pandemic-dominated year has ended, and a demoralized and fragmented British socialist left remains embattled, to say the least. A bipartisan establishment backlash has seen a relentless drive to return socialists to the margins of political discussion; one all the more determined because, in 2017, we...
China’s Growing Presence In Central Asia Should Worry Old Allies
By Nantoo Banerjee India’s External Affairs Ministry may disagree, but the country’s attempt to make its presence felt in Central Asia has come rather too late. The initiative should have started three decades ago. India could probably rope in Russia to launch a joint trade and economic cooperation programme...
Arresting BJP Decline In UP Turning Difficult For Modi
By Dr. Gyan Pathak Successive surveys, month after month, have been recording sharp fall in BJP’s political fortune, and also a miraculous rise of Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh, especially since September 2021. The steep slide of the BJP led by Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh has necessitated...
Modi Assurances Not Good Enough To Scare Omicron Away
By Sushil Kutty The greetings and the good wishes have piled up at the entrance alongside dire predictions. Among the second lot are those which are related to the coronavirus. The coronavirus morphed several times and its latest variant Omicron is mildly severe compared to the horrendous Delta and...
Urgent Need To Strengthen Democracy And Democratic Structure
By Arun Srivastava In its desperation to prove secularism irrelevant and worthless the rightist forces. BJP and RSS, are creating a Frankenstein monster by making the police into an arrogant force that turns democratic institutions into a ramshackle. The saffron outfits are trying to depict secularism as fragile...
Qatar Follows Saudis And UAE To Clean Its Textbooks
By James M Dorsey Qatar has begun to cleanse its schoolbooks of supremacist, racist or derogatory references as well as celebrations of violent jihad and martyrdom, according to a recently released study. The revision of textbooks in the final year leading up to Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 World...
Politics In 2022 Likely To Be Marked By Further Violence
By Harihar Swarup As the year draws to an end, one can risk a little speculation about what we can expect from politics in India in 2022. As its national government crosses the mid-term point, BJP will fight the opposition in seven state elections. Uttar Pradesh, of course, will...
‘One Nation-One Ombudsman’ For Banks Comes Into Force
By K Raveendran Fancying on Prime Minister Modi’s ‘One nation-One poll’ idea, the Reserve Bank of India has launched the ‘One nation-One ombudsman’ programme. But unlike Modi’s poll plan, which could change the very nature and structure of democracy and governance in India, the reason for which it is...
Son Will Continue To Shine On Dynasties In 2022 And Beyond
By Sushil Kutty Akhilesh Yadav did an Aurangzeb on his father Mulayam Singh Yadav and grabbed the strings of the Samajwadi Party, which the father couldn’t thwart out of maybe filial reasons. But Mulayam’s younger sibling Shivpal Yadav could not stomach the usurpation and uncle and nephew broke ties—Shivpal...
Dilemma Of Evolving A Suitable Hybrid Mode Of Working
By Arjavi Indraneesh Omicron has put a spoke in the plan by companies to switch back to normal office work. As the new variant threatens to unleash a ‘Covid tsunami’, as forecast by the World Health Organisation, several companies have already delayed the switch back and asked their staff...
Spiralling European Gas, Electricity Prices A Lesson For India
By Prabir Purkayastha The current crisis in Europe of spiralling gas prices, coupled with a cold snap, brings out that the transition of any part of the world to green energy is not going to be easy. It also brings out the complexity in such a transition, that energy...
