THE execution of Yakub Memon is a miscarriage of justice. There is no other way to describe the hanging of a man when there were strong mitigating circumstances to commute his sentence. Yakub Memon was certainly guilty of a crime – involvement in the conspiracy which led to the heinous bomb blasts in Mumbai which took the lives of 257 persons. But his role and the nature of the offence did not warrant capital punishment. The ends of justice would have been served if he had been awarded a life sentence, just as the ten others whose death sentences were commuted to life.

PRIME Minister Alexis Tsipras and the Syriza-led government of Greece have abjectly capitulated to the diktats of the Eurozone-IMF bosses. This is a tragedy for the Greek people. The formation of the Syriza government had raised hopes that the hateful austerity measures imposed by Troika, consisting of the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund, would be ended and national sovereignty defended. These hopes have been cruelly dashed in the short space of six months.

THE stain of corruption, nepotism and crony capitalism is enveloping the Modi government and the BJP state governments. Narendra Modi and the BJP had made the massive corruption under the UPA government their main plank in the Lok Sabha election campaign. Narendra Modi had promised to put an end to the loot and corruption under Congress rule. After the completion of one year of the BJP government, speaking at a rally in Mathura district, Modi claimed that he had not guaranteed acche din for those who looted the nation; for them it was bure din.

THE Modi government is faced with a major scandal concerning the Lalit Modi affair. What this episode reveals is serious impropriety on the part of a senior minister in the cabinet, the cosy nexus of crony capitalism and the typical response of a government which wants to deny and cover up the whole affair.