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Who won and who lost? The anti-waqf amendments lobby claims the government was forced to eat crow and give an undertaking to protect the status of notified and registered Waqf properties, including the all-important waqf-by-user properties. The government also had to promise not to appoint any non-Muslim to the Waqf Council or waqf boards till the final verdict.

Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser to the interim government Dr. Muhammad Yunus is presently in the midst of his diplomatic triumph by successfully outreaching to the major countries of the world including the two super powers. After having a major success in getting all the support from the Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Beijing in the last week of March this year, Dr. Yunus on April 17 Thursday received two important delegations-one from Pakistan and the other from the US Government. A third military delegation from Russian Navy is now in Chittagong on a four day visit. There was never such flurry of diplomatic activities in Dhaka in the recent past.

The Supreme Court has delivered a truly historic verdict, which protects the federal principle and declares any action taken by a Governor to thwart the will of the state legislature as unconstitutional. The 414-page judgment delivered by a two-member Bench of the Supreme Court, consisting of Justice J B Pardiwala and Justice R Mahadevan, has boldly called to account the misuse of the Constitutional post by Governor R N Ravi of Tamil Nadu, who withheld assent for Bills passed by the state legislature.

Donald Trump has put off his proposed tariffs by ninety days; but countries like India have to respond to Trump’s measures whether now or after ninety days. These measures are not just an episodic act. Trump clearly threatens with tariffs any country that dares to act in a manner not approved by him; he is weaponising tariffs to assert US hegemony, quite apart from using them for economic ends like raising domestic activity and reducing the US current account deficit. We are in short witnessing a new phase of world capitalism; and for countries like India to pretend otherwise and carry on with “business as usual” would be absurd. “Business as usual” had brought great suffering to the working people of the country even in its heyday; to persist with it in the new situation will bring even greater suffering and even greater subservience to American dictates.

The architect of first path breaking event that heralded the new socialist society, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, was born on April 22, 1870. According to laws of historical materialism, or following the materialist concept of history, Socialism follows capitalism. Whichever socio-economic formation replaces the former stage is always higher. Socialism is also higher than capitalism and superior to it. It is always the result of evolution of productive forces. It takes a new route while in transition. This transition from the industrial to higher levels of industrial organization is always according to historical materialist stance in full.

At a time when several international health programmes across the countries have been adversely impacted after withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO) following an announcement by President Donald Trump on January 20, 2025, the finalization of the international agreement on pandemic reached yesterday April 16, 2025, brings new hopes creating a history.

BHOPAL: The politics in Madhya Pradesh has got fresh heat with the confrontation between the Congress and the pro-BJP Baba Ramdev. The Congress veteran leader Digvijay Singh issued strongly worded statement against Baba Ramdev. Not only that, he went to the extent of filing a complaint against him at the police thana.

LONDON: The statement attributed to Mao: “Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent” appears nowhere in his writings. And like many apocryphal aphorisms it only illuminates a small part of reality. Nevertheless it has been pressed into service to describe the turmoil arising from the split in the ruling class in the United States.

NEW YORK: “The bond market is very tricky. I was watching it. But if you look at it now, it’s beautiful.” These were the words with which President Donald Trump accompanied his surprising decision on April 9 to “pause” the previously announced “reciprocal tariffs” for ninety days. Instead of the spuriously calculated rates on imports from surplus trading partners, most goods, including previously exempt goods from Canada and Mexico compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, would be subject to a 10 percent base rate until further notice.

The game of political hunting, which is typically characterised in India by cases, raids, seizures, and arrests, which generally do not lead to conviction, but enable the government to pin its adversaries down for years without trial in cases registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), seems to be reaching its climax. The latest chargesheet alleging money laundering has been filed by ED against the Congress Parliamentary Party chairperson Sonia Gandhi, and the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi the leader of the main opposition Congress, which has triggered a nationwide massive agitation of Congress rank and file outside ED offices on Wednesday April 16 across states terming action against Gandhis as ‘political vendetta’.