THREE developments have taken place in the last week, on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections – one is positive and the other two are negative. The first issue is the Supreme Court’s order directing the State Bank of India to submit to the Election Commission by March 12 the details of electoral bonds and asking the Election Commission to put it up on their website by March 15.  This order comes in the wake of SBI’s appeal for a time of four months till June 30 to submit all the details about the bonds.The Supreme Court has firmly rejected this appeal and finally the people will come to know

THE BJP has launched a full-fledged drive to organise defections from the Congress and some other opposition parties.  After getting Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and Jayant Chaudhary’s RLD to defect to the BJP, there has been a spate of defections of individual leaders, MLAs and former legislators of the Congress in different states.In the past one month alone, there was the declaration by two Congress MLAs in Assam of supporting the BJP government in the state; one of them was the working president of the Assam Congress.  This was followed by the defection of Ashok Chavan, former chief minister an

THE finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, in her interim budget speech announced the setting up of a high-powered committee “to study the challenges of fast population growth and demographic changes”.  The announcement of such a committee in a budget speech was itself a curious one.  If the government intended to frame a new population policy based on a committee to study population growth, it should have found a mention in the president’s address to parliament.The purpose of the high-powered committee is also unclear as the fact of “fast population growth” is itself a contestable one.  Fur

BIHAR chief minister and JD(U) leader, Nitish Kumar, has somersaulted again. After leaving the BJP and forming a Mahagathbandhan government with the RJD in August 2022, Nitish has now defected back to the side of the BJP.In India’s parliamentary history, Nitish Kumar has created a notorious record of switching sides five times and being sworn in as chief minister, nine times.This latest U-turn has taken place in the most curious circumstances.  Since July last year, Nitish was ostensibly engaged in putting together an anti-BJP opposition grouping.

THE consecration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya on January 22 will symbolise the merger of State and religion under the rubric of Hindutva.  Central to the `Pran Pratishtha’ of the idol of Lord Ram will be the role of prime minister Narendra Modi, underlining the fact that this is a State-sponsored event. The Ayodhya ceremony is to proclaim Hindutva as the State ideology.  Both in the run-up to the consecration and the mobilisation of pilgrims to Ayodhya, there is the intertwining of the efforts of the State and the Sangh  parivar.The timing of the Ayodhya event has obviously been de