By Dr. Gyan Pathak The Congress announced five guarantees to Assam voters on Sunday March 29, and two days later on March 31, BJP has released its manifesto and gave 31 promises. A special feature of the BJP’s manifesto is its comparison of achievement of NDA and UPA rule...
By T N Ashok There is a particular irony embedded in the story of film festivals and India’s capital. For decades, Delhi was the centre-piece of the nation’s most prestigious cinematic gathering. The Vigyan Bhavan echoed with the chatter of international directors. The Siri Fort Auditorium complex, built in...
By Pradeep Kapoor LUCKNOW: Is Congress trying to win over the support from Samajwadi Party leader Mohd Azam Khan and his followers in Rampur and other neighbouring areas? The recent meeting of UPCC president Ajay Rai and other leaders with Tanzeen Khan, the wife of the incarcerated Mohd Azam...
By Tirthankar Mitra An election result can be numerically decisive, it can also be hollow. The recent election result in Denmark is a case in point. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen remains at the centre of power. But the authority that once underpinned her leadership has visibly thinned. She leads...
By Asad Mirza The war against Iran has threatened global supplies of oil and natural gas, sparked fertiliser shortages and disrupted air travel. Iran’s grip on the strategic Strait of Hormuz has shaken markets and prices. The United States and Israel continue to strike Iran, whose retaliatory attacks have...
By Nantoo Banerjee The central excise duty cut on petrol and diesel oil to help petro-fuel producers and marketeers partly cover their losses on account of the rising crude oil import prices is an internal government matter. It is not meant to have any impact on retail prices which...
By Dr. Gyan Pathak On the very onset of the Financial Year 2026-27, beginning from April 1, 2026, India faces a multi-layered set of risks, given its position as a major energy importer with strong trade, investment, and remittance linkages with the West Asia region, which has turned into...
By Ashok Nilakantan Ayers NEW YORK: It began, as these things often do, with the language of certainty. Targeted strikes. Decisive blows. A crippled nuclear program and a supreme leader dead. Washington and Tel Aviv declared the opening salvos of their campaign against Iran a strategic masterstroke — a...
By Kalyani Shankar After a decade in the Opposition, the Congress party is striving to regain its influence in Kerala ahead of the 2026 elections. The Congress-led UDF wants to snatch power, bolstered by strong results in past Lok Sabha elections and local body polls. The ruling CPI(M) is...
By Arun Srivastava As Union Home Minister, Amit Shah has brazenly criminalised Indian politics under the saffron Raj. Now, the tone and tenor of his chargesheet against West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo, Mamata Banerjee, which he unveiled on March 27 in Calcutta, provides ample clue towards...
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in Kerala are over the moon in the wake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to pep up the party’s election campaign. Understandable. They think it will give a big boost to the party’s chances of winning a couple...
By Pradeep Kapoor LUCKNOW: The successful launch of Mission 2027 by the Samajwadi Party assembly election campaign at a massive rally at Dadri on Sunday boosted the morale of leaders and workers in Western UP, considered to be stronghold of ruling BJP. The selection of the venue at Dadri...
By T N Ashok The glass towers of Bandra-Kurla Complex gleam with the sterile promise of a modern economy, but their foundations rest on a history of spectacular wreckage. For seven decades, thirteen Indian Prime Ministers—from the socialist idealism of Jawaharlal Nehru to the digital muscularity of Narendra Modi—have...
By Tirthankar Mitra Think of an actor equally at home on stage and screen, and Utpal Dutt whose birth anniversary was on March 29, comes to mind first. With an English accent which would have made even an Englishman envious, coupled with mannerisms to match, Dutt would have been...
By Asad Mirza More than 3,000 ‘No Kings’ protests against the Trump administration were held across America and in more than a dozen countries on Saturday (March 27), according to a coalition of organisers that included “anti-authoritarian” groups – Indivisible and 50501, labour unions and other grassroots organisations. Saturday,...
By K Raveendran US President Donald Trump’s attempt to jawbone oil lower has run into the hard edge of market reality. At the start, the strategy appeared to work. When he signalled that peace talks with Iran were possible and suggested a diplomatic opening, crude quickly gave back a...
By R. Suryamurthy Strip away the political theatre around fuel price relief, and what emerges is not a story of benevolence, but of a fiscal system stretched to its limits — and increasingly out of balance. India’s latest excise duty cuts on petrol and diesel are not just a...
By Dr. Gyan Pathak AI-Driven automation could close off many pathways to decent work, including clerical and administrative positions, particularly for women and young workers, which historically represent relatively higher-quality jobs in lower-income countries. Not only that, the disruption by Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in developing economies may materialize...