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The contrast is like the darkness of last night and the day at 9am this morning. The ugly squat chaos in Delhi and the neat order in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE has a new licensing system for social media influencers and content creators. They have to get business licenses before applying for a media license from the UAE Media Council.

His first love was reporting. And while on the job in locations as diverse as Paris and Biafra, Frederick Forsythe who passed away on June 9 dug out the nuggets of lives unknown which would later be the material of his best selling fiction. He was 86. Forsythe did not pen timeless pieces of literature. His works were fiction, pure and simple.

The interim Chief Adviser of Bangladesh Government Dr. Muhammad Yunus has finally announced the holding of national elections in the country in the first half of April next year defying the demand of the main opposition party BNP to hold it in December this year. The final dates will be notified by the Election Commission. The EC will also be notifying the norms as also the criteria for the eligibility of the candidates for contesting the polls.

WASHINGTON: China US tariff war is back in the news and focus as the Chinese delegation reached London for the second round of trade talks beginning Monday. The first round was held in Geneva last month and the three day talks prepared a framework for carrying forward the negotiations towards an agreement.

Indian state, as guaranteed and obligated under the Constitution has the legal responsibility to protect the right of lives of its citizens. If it feels that an individual is involved in criminal activities, in that case the activity of that person must be investigated, before initiating any action against him. Nevertheless the Narendra Modi led BJP Government for protecting the interest of the rightist forces has been unashamedly violating this constitutional provision by resorting to deliberate killing of a person or persons without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding.

The United Kingdom’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR), published on June 2 this year offers an ambitious vision for the British Armed Forces. It reiterates a focus on a ‘NATO First’ policy, amid what Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer calls in the document a ‘new era for defence and security’.

In the highly surcharged atmosphere due to ongoing war between Russia & Ukraine and Israeli aggression on Gaza, the fear of use of nuclear weapons looms large. People around the globe had become complacent about the need of the abolition of nuclear weapons. Thus, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) did not become people’s issue. This is despite the fact that the treaty was passed by an overwhelming majority of the delegates in the UN General Assembly in 2017 with only one vote against and one abstention. But now as the fear of nuclear threat is increasing, people are getting sensitized about the need for their abolition. People in South Asia after a recent short lived war between India and Pakistan are also feeling the nuclear danger.

There has never been a time since independence when the Election Commission of India (ECI) came under such a great public distrust as it has been freely expressed now. ECI is supposed to do its duty as a neutral umpire in electoral battle, but unfortunately at numerous occasions it seemed functioning as just an extension of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Autonomy of this Constitutional body has been clipped through legal instruments. During elections, it has been seen favouring PM Narendra Modi, most strikingly with respect to his hate speeches, and after election, it has been blocking even electoral data.

When the Narendra Modi government started building toilets for people to use, tens of thousands in India's hinterlands were reluctant as they were used to open air defecation, the traditional way of clearing the bowels in the relative freedom of an open sky!

India’s economic growth figures seem to be getting increasingly delinked with domestic manufacturing, industrial output, and job generation. The manufacturing sector had a very little contribution to the country’s 6.5 percent GDP growth during the last financial year, the slowest in four years. Despite a good monsoon last year, the country’s agriculture sector growth rate in the second quarter (October-March) was 3.5 percent. The industrial growth rate for 2024-25 is estimated to be only four percent, also marking the lowest in the last four years. In April, the country’s industrial output slowed to an eight-month low at 2.7 percent as per the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO). What is pushing the country's GDP growth? Obviously, the less reliable estimates of the country’s vast services sector backed substantially by imports.