ON the fourth anniversary of demonetisation, Narendra Modi has claimed that it succeeded in curbing black money. He probably believes he can get away with making this claim because of the passage of time. But most people in the country know this to be a lie for a simple reason.For demonetisation to curb black money, there must be some mechanism through which it can be shown to do so. Otherwise it would be no different from claiming that the Olympic Games of 2016 curbed black money in India.

THE Delhi state committee of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), in a statement issued on November 9, expressed dismay at the recent death of a promising young woman, who came to study in the national capital with a bundle of dreams. A second-year BA Mathematics student of LSR College was forced to end her life on November 3, 2020.Hailing from Telangana’s Ranga Reddy district, she was a topper in the state in class 12.  She comes from a modest family background where sending a daughter for higher education in Delhi was itself a challenge.

THE CPI(M) Haryana has strongly opposed the decision of the state government to hike twenty times the fees of MBBS and PG courses of government medical colleges in Haryana. The present fees for the courses are Rs 53,000. With this decision, now from this session, every student who gets admission in MBBS in Haryana medical colleges will have to submit a bond worth of Rs 10 lakh every year. This will include the fees of that year also. The first-year fee now will be Rs 80,000, second-year Rs 88,000, third-year Rs 96,000 and the final year fee will be Rs1,06,480.

NOW, what is the target of BJP and Sangh Parivar, after Citizens Amendment Bill 2020 and the Farm Bills-Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (promotion and facilitation) Bill, 2020 and the Farmers (empowerment and protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 ? Does the centre’s delay in reconstituting the Parliamentary Committee on Welfare of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) precisely give any hints?

THE victory of Joe Biden in the presidential election in the United States must have been a galling for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  After all, he was the first Indian prime minister ever to virtually endorse a candidate for  the election, the incumbent Donald Trump. Everyone recalls the reiteration of the slogan “Ab ki Baar Trump Sarkar” by Modi at the “Howdy Modi” rally at Houston in September 2019.  The Namaste Trump rally at Ahmedabad in February 2020 was another political gesture in favour of Trump organised by Modi.Traditionally, the Indian government maintains a neutrality in the p