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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.

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.

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.

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’.

The euphoria surrounding the enactment of ten Tamil Nadu legislations without presidential assent may be short-lived. What initially seemed like a landmark assertion of state rights has now been complicated by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin’s subsequent decision to form a three-member panel under the chairmanship of retired Supreme Court Justice Kurian Joseph to study state autonomy. While the initial legislative move was celebrated as a bold stand against the overreach of the Centre and the governor’s discretionary powers, the decision to constitute a panel risks neutralising the very momentum that had been gained. In fact, it not only threatens to blunt the significance of the legislative assertion but also opens the door to a reimagining—perhaps even a restoration—of the governor’s role in ways that were recently curtailed.

India’s stock markets recovered smartly on Tuesday, emerging from the turmoil post Trump tariffs. The unprecedented tariffs declared by Donald Trump had roiled the global financial markets from which the major global centres have yet to recover. On Wednesday till the time of writing, the Indian stock markets had marginal fall taking into account the day before its bouncing back, but the signs were apparent that the Indian market is no panic mode. There is a feeling of restraint and control.

With Rahul Gandhi tightening his proverbial grip on the political neck of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the latter in his desperation has directed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to pounce upon Rahul and Sonia Gandhi and implicate them afresh in the long-drawn National Herald case. The case was filed in 2012, but incidentally since then the ED has not succeeded in collecting evidence to legally indict them.

LUCKNOW: Is BJP unhappy with former chief minister and BSP national president Mayawati’s decision relating to induction of her nephew Akash Anand back in party fold? The manner in which security cover of Y plus of Akash Anand was removed within 24 hours of Mayawati's decision to take him back in party is an indication.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Supreme Court’s order fixing a time-frame for the President and the Governors to act in the case of bills passed by the State Legislatures in Tamil Nadu’s case has given Kerala a booster shot.