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KOLKATA: ‘Referendum’ as a route to bring into larger focus the demand for a separate administration for the hills part of Manipur where Kuki-Zos are dominant inhabitants ? As the ethnic conflict that started on May 3, 2023 raged and Manipur came to be referred to as a strife-scarred state, the prominent Kuki-Zo organisation and its affiliates started not only decrying the discriminatory stance of the Valley majority Meiteis towards them but also demanding a separate administrative arrangement admissible under relevant provisions of the Constitution.

Bangladesh has officially sought a meeting between their head of interim government Dr. Mohammad Yunus and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the coming BIMSTEC meeting at Bangkok on April 2-4 next. Both countries are members of BIMSTEC. As per present schedule, both have confirmed their presence at the summit of the BIMSTEC. Desperate to have a meeting with the Indian PM after getting a drubbing from the U.S. intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard during her visit to India last week, the Bangladesh government wants to have a detailed discussion with the Indian PM who has been averting a one-on-one meeting in the last seven and half months since Dr. Yunus took over as interim head on August 8, 2024.

‘Mind your language’ is out of the phrasebook. Now, it’s Mind your Grok! But wait, there’s no guarantee Grok’s gonna listen. Grok’s got a mind of its own and Grok’s not subject to the law of the land, or is it? Question is, why’s Grok suddenly in the thick of things?

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There is no denying the politics behind the ongoing ASHA workers’ strike in the Kerala Capital. The well-orchestrated misinformation campaign blitzkrieg - packed with patent falsehoods and rank misinformation - unleashed by the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in connection with the strike is a part of the political game to discredit the Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government in the State.

As the year 2026 approaches, the issue of the delimitation of parliamentary and assembly constituencies is drawing public attention and controversy. This is the year when the freeze on the number of seats will end, and the next round of delimitation must be undertaken following the first census conducted after 2026. The 42nd Constitutional Amendment, enacted during the Emergency in 1976, initially froze delimitation. Later, under the Vajpayee government, this freeze was extended until 2026.

Just after the seventh round of talks between agitating farmers representatives of Punjab and the central delegation ended inconclusively on March 19, 2025, the Punjab Police came into action, arrested hundreds of protesting farmers from various places including from the protest sites at Shambu and Khanauri borders. Police from both the states Punjab and Haryana, are now bulldozing the structures that were created to prevent the farmers to march ahead to Delhi to press on their demands, chiefly a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price for their crops.

A section of the former and current workers of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (MSIL) has been agitating against the carmaker’s alleged illegal and unethical labour practices for the last five months. Rallying under the aegis of the Maruti Suzuki Struggle Committee, the workers had been protesting peacefully in Haryana’s Manesar sitting on an indefinite dharna near Manesar DC office since September 18 last year, under the banner of their own collective titled Maruti Suzuki Struggle Committee (‘MSSC’). One of their main demands is equal pay for equal work.

The announcements of Musk's SpaceX-Starlink's tie-up with Jio Reliance (Jio is a trademark of Reliance Industries) and Bharti Airtel, the two dominant players, raise a number of questions. The two key questions are: i) Will it mean a greater monopolization in telecom services? ii) Will satellite spectrum be given to Starlink without auction? It also raises questions about whether such satellite spectrum, a country's critical resource, should be given out for commercial operations in this way.

“Sangh Saranam Gachchami”. Yes, after a long eleven years’ of insolence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting the RSS headquarters at Nagpur on March 30 for meeting the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and paying his obeisance. In recent months Modi has been trying to send the message across the country and especially to the saffron ecosystem that he was a committed karyakarta (cadres) of RSS and had enormous respect for Bhagwat, but his authoritarian style of governance failed to make RSS leadership change their perception towards him.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is confused. Confusing 'glorification' with 'irrelevant' and vice versa, leaving everybody in the Sangh Parivar confused. RSS' top spokesperson Sunil Ambedkar couldn't clearly enunciate who are the glorifiers of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb or why "glorification of Aurangzeb" is "irrelevant" to present times?