THE RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, has stated in a speech to RSS workers in Muzaffarpur that while the army takes six to seven months to train its soldiers, the RSS can get its cadres ready for battle in two to three days. 

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi has, in an interview last week with a private television channel, claimed that someone who opens a pakoda shop in the street is to be considered as employed.  Further, his earning of Rs 200 per day is not reflected in any book of accounts. He said, “The truth is massive number of people are being employed”. 

THE press conference by four senior judges of the Supreme Court on January 12 was truly unprecedented in the judicial history of India. Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph, the four senior most judges after the chief justice and who constitute the five-member collegium took this extraordinary step to complain about the way in which the chief justice was dealing with the administrative matters relating to the allocation of cases and the constitution of the benches.

THE Tribune newspaper published an investigative report on January 4 about how its reporter could get access to details of more than one billion Aadhar numbers.  The reporter paid Rs 500 through Paytm to a vendor after which a gateway was created with a login ID and password which enabled her to get any name, address, photo, phone number and email-id of a person registered with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

LOOKING back at the year 2017 that has just ended, there is an important aspect of the national situation that must be noted. The year unfolded with the forces of reaction on the ascendant. But by the last quarter of the year, the forces of resistance against the right wing offensive had begun to assert themselves and make their presence felt.