MILLIONS of people in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, and other regions are suffering unthinkable agony due to unprecedented floods – despite weather forecasts of very heavy monsoon rains issued months in advance. Nothing worthwhile was done by those responsible for the crucial duty of protecting people’s lives and livelihoods.Shockingly, Himachal Pradesh is facing worst devastation even before it could recover from the cloudbursts and landslides that struck just last year.

ON September 2, 2025, the Delhi High Court denied bail to former JNU student and activist Umar Khalid and eight others in a case related to the communal riots that took place in Delhi on February 23-26, 2020. This case is generally known as the ‘larger conspiracy case’ because it is concerned with an alleged conspiracy hatched by several activists to create a communal conflagration in the capital. These activists were involved in the widespread protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) brought in by the Modi government in 2019.

ECONOMICS textbooks tell us that a country imposes tariffs when it wants to protect domestic producers of the imported goods. Donald Trump’s tariffs however serve a broader objective: they are like a military intervention, or a coup d’etat or a terrorist attack, to make nations bend to his will. Indian garment exporters for instance are being hit by 50 per cent tariffs not for the protection of any American garment producers but to make India bend to Trump’s will.This explains the anomalies in Trump’s tariff policy.

THE all India conference of the School Teachers Federation of India (STFI) held recently had strongly opposed the irrational changes made in school textbooks. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), which is entrusted with the responsibility of developing curricula and textbooks that uphold scientific temperament, historical accuracy, and the secular, pluralistic values enshrined in the Indian Constitution, has instead altered textbooks in line with the dictates of the RSS and the BJP government at the centre.

IN a breathtaking display of doublespeak, RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat devoted three days (August 26-28, 2025) to painting his organisation with a nationalist, liberal, inclusive and serene outlook that only wants India to lead the whole humanity into an era of peace and prosperity. The occasion was a lecture organised in New Delhi to mark the completion of 100 years of RSS next month.