Enable Ginger

DESPITE inflation hovering above 8 per cent, the American voters have not really focused on the performance of the sitting president in the 2022 US mid-term elections. Breaking away from the norm of punishing the sitting president’s party, the electorate has voted tactically to defeat the possibility of the return of Donald Trump. According to political pundits, the 2022 polls are more a referendum on a former leader, Donald Trump and on the future of teetering American democracy.

INDIAN army chief general Manoj Pande was on a five day visit to Nepal, starting September 4. In continuation of the custom and tradition between the two armies, Gen Pande was conferred the title of honorary general of Nepal Army by the president of Nepal. However, besides parades, receptions, the focus of the visit was the discussions over continued recruitment of Gorkha soldiers under the newly constituted Agnipath scheme of the Indian government.

THE integration of the Global South has always worried the West. In the 1970s when the poor nations joined hands to demand a New International Economic Order (NIEO), the West got into action to divide the south-south solidarity. A three-way split was engineered – the oil producing third world countries in the middle east were clubbed together as relatively well-off nations and separated from the much larger third-world composed of developing and underdeveloped nations.

IT has been almost six months since the tragic death of India’s first chief of  defence staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat, in a helicopter crash along with 13 others including his wife, his staff, protection party, and the aircrew. And the government is yet to appoint General Rawat’s successor for reasons best known to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.