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Former Prime Minister of Bangladesh and chairperson of the main political party Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) returned to Dhaka on Tuesday May 6 on the eve of the completion of nine months of the interim government headed by Dr. Muhammad Yunus. Khaleda who was ailing for long and was not allowed to go abroad for medical treatment during the regime of Sheikh Hasina, was allowed to go to London for treatment by the interim regime.

The gesture of Supreme Court judges declaring their assets is at best, symbolic and, at worst, a distraction from the deeper and more systemic issues that plague the system. The declaration itself does not and cannot constitute a meaningful solution to judicial corruption, especially when the mechanisms for oversight remain weak, opaque, and riddled with structural loopholes. The immediate provocation for this move—the discovery of burnt currency at the residence of Delhi High Court judge Yashwant Varma—has added urgency to the narrative, but urgency is not the same as effectiveness. If anything, this incident highlights the gaping holes in the system and the inadequacy of the current means of accountability. It took a fire to bring out this specific problem, but fire can in no way be a solution to expose corruption!

India has emerged as the second most attractive destination for Japanese investors in Asia, after Singapore. It surpassed China, the most attractive place for Japanese investment in Asia for over four decades. Hitherto, India was eighth in 2020 in terms of getting investment from Japan.

India has a great friend in UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who has on a number of occasions held India back from the brink of war with arch enemy Pakistan, thus saving India from total annihilation. This time, too, Guterres has asked both India and Pakistan to exercise “maximum restraint”. The UN Chief seems to be telling India "we read you loud and clear", the Pahalgam massacre happened but rein in the oats!

KOLKATA: Not too long ago, BJP-led NDA government at the Centre was vehemently opposed to caste census. But in a dramatic policy reversal, the dispensation led by Narendra Modi has given its nod to it.

BHOPAL: While the Madhya Pradesh Congress is making all out efforts to strengthen party organization, the state government is facing serious financial crisis. The Congress has decided to hold a huge party conclave at Jabalpur. Jabalpur has a history. It was here that during freedom struggle at an annual meet of the party in which Subhash Bose defeated Dr. Pattabhi Sitaramayya. Mahatma Gandhi said his defeat is my defeat.

Amazing are the ways of the Indian government and the country’s political satraps to deal with frequent Islamist terror attacks on India’s innocent citizens. In the last one month or so, the organized Islamist terror in West Bengal’s Muslim-majority Murshidabad district had led to massive destruction and displacement of over 150 Hindu families. Within weeks of the incident came the attack on scores of innocent tourists at picturesque Pahalgam in the Muslim-dominated state of Kashmir (J&K) in another far corner of the country. The trousers of around 20 victims of the dastardly Pahalgam attack - all males – were reportedly found unzipped or pulled down by the team of officials that carried out the first examination of the 26 lifeless, bullet-riddled bodies, in what is being seen as a confirmation that Islamist terrorists had established the faith of the tourists before killing them. These terrorists are not political militants. They are jihadists, or killers of Kafirs. No words are strong enough to condemn the abominable religion-centric cruelty.

Water can catch fire easily. When it comes to the Indus waters, we are seeing how combustible it could be —at least verbally for now.

There is a growing conflict and temple war in West Bengal surrounding the inauguration of the Jagannath temple in Digha, a significant event that opened on April 30 during the auspicious occasion of Akshaya Tritiya. The Bengal's Jagannath Dham mirrors the renowned Puri Jagannath Temple, and its inauguration by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is a strategic move in her political game.

Jagannath Dham literally means the “Abode of the Lord of the World”. Sri Jagannatha Temple at Puri is called Jagannath Dham, since it is abode of Jagannath, Krishna, who was one of the ten incarnations of Vishnu in Hindu mythology.BJP led government of Odisha has expressed its intention on Sunday, May 4 to send a letter to Bengal government led by another political party TMC requesting her to stop referring the Jagannath Temple at Digha as Jagannath Dham. It has given a new twist to Jagannath Dham controversy. Do Lord Jagannath devotees among non-BJP Hindus need special permission from BJP or their governments permission to build an abode (dham) for Jagannath anywhere else than BJP’s bigotry permits?