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Munir Ahmed is the fifth happiest man in Jammu & Kashmir. The four others are the ones who have escaped the dragnet. The four (five?) who shot dead 26 Indians and a Nepal national in the Pahalgam meadow. These terrorists continue to elude security including CRPF personnel. Ahmed is also CRPF but his happiness stems from the relief his Pakistani wife got from the Jammu & Kashmir High Court.

In his acceptance speech from hospital bed in Calcutta for the honorary Oscar award, Satyajit Ray said: “I have learned everything… about the craft of cinema from the making of American films. I have been watching American films very carefully over the years and I loved them for what they entertain, and then later loved them for what they taught.” Howsoever his learning from American cinema, the trigger for making Pather Panchali or in his own words the “sanction for everything radical that I had wanted to do if I ever made a film” was Vittorio de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It should have been a momentous occasion in the annals of not only Kerala’s history but also that of the whole country. But the solemnity of the occasion was marred by the ugly display of petty politics.

Reaction to the killing of innocent tourists by the terrorists in Pahalgam has been full of grief, resentment, anger and revenge. This is on expected lines when any such incident occurs. But good thing is that the people of Kashmir have out rightly rejected the killings and came forward to save lives of the injured. That they protested en masse against these killings is a positive signal. From my experience as I lived through the period of terrorism in Punjab, when the people go against any movement, it is bound to dampen in time to come. Therefore this reaction of the people of Kashmir could be the beginning of end of terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir.

Centre’s announcement of conducting national level Caste Census along with the forthcoming Census in India has intensified caste politics in Bihar, the first state to go to polls later in 2025, whose Vidhan Sabha’s term is to expire on November 22, this year. Political analysts have already claimed that by announcing the decision, PM Narendra Modi has punctured the core political plank of the INDIA bloc, called Mahagathbandhan in the state. Such a conclusion has obviously ignored the fact that Bihar voters are the most conscious and practical on caste politics in the country, who can’t be easily waylaid by mere promise.

Some countries are having it fine. No talk of ‘War and Peace’. The UAE, for instance. Indians and Pakistanis, big numbers of them, live disciplined lives in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Sharjah; Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah, eking out better lives than the ones in India and Pakistan. The latter two neighbouring nations are engaged these days in warmongering, preparing for war to break out if it hasn't already. But as the Burj al Khalifa, the world's tallest skyscraper, will bear witness to, the only issue the UAE residents worry about would be an impending hot and dusty weekend, which is what the weatherman has predicted!

Elementary textbooks in economics invariably begin with a completely mythical concept: the concept of “perfect competition”, which is different from the concept of “free competition” that the classical economists and Marx had used. “Free competition” was characterised by the equality of wages (for equal skills) and of profit-rates across sectors; all it required for its realisation was free mobility of labour and of capital across sectors which was by no means a far-fetched assumption in the pre-monopoly era. “Perfect competition” by contrast is characterised additionally by zero profits.

In India, the conflict between labour and capital has been intensified with the replacement and codification of all labour laws into four Labour Codes in the name of ‘rationalisation’ and ‘ease of doing business’ in order to reduce the labour compliance burden of industries. This has deeply significant consequences for the rights of workers, especially women.

Ten days have passed since the gruesome killings of 26 people at Pahalgam on April 22. In the following days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a lead to the boiling mood of the nation by announcing a number of measures, including the suspension of the 1960-signed Indus Water Treaty, followed by Pakistan’s retaliation through its own set of counter-measures, including coming out of the 1972 Shimla Agreement.

The terrorist outrage in Pahalgam, which left 26 tourists dead, has united the whole country in condemnation and grief. 25 families spread across India and one family in Nepal saw a beloved family member being murdered in cold blood. By choosing to kill people after ascertaining their religion, the terrorists hoped to create a communal divide and fuel communal tensions in the country. But the opposite has happened. There has been a spontaneous outpouring of anger and condemnation by all sections of society and people, irrespective of caste and creed, have spoken with one voice. At the political level, all political parties have expressed their resolve to unitedly face this dastardly attack.