A BOLD new project has been recently announced by a strong group of UK universities supported by the Wellcome Trust, which has more than £1 billion in funds. Its objective is to synthesise the human genome, or in other words, to write what is called the code of life. With an initial investment of £10 million, the Synthetic Human Genome Project (SynHG) aims to create the means to construct human chromosomes – and eventually entire genomes – from the ground up.

IT has been a year since Comrade Sitaram Yechury left us. But even today, we have not fully emerged from the deep void his departure created. His absence continues to echo in the movement, reminding us of the clarity, commitment, and revolutionary zeal he embodied.Born into an upper-caste, privileged family, Comrade Yechury made a conscious and unwavering choice – to stand with the oppressed, the exploited, the silenced, and the working people of India. His life was an affirmation of the Marxist understanding that class and caste oppression are interlinked and must be fought together.

THE first quarter year-on-year estimates of GDP for the current FY 2025-26 turns out to be higher than the last year’s quarter one figures. But these are estimates and hence need to be dissected and seen in relation to other official estimates provided by the government. At the outset a 7.8 per cent growth rate in the first quarter of 2025-26 is higher than all the four quarterly year-on-year growth estimates of the previous year. This is important particularly when lot of uncertainty emerges in the global trade relations.

THE prime minister recently made an inordinately delayed visit to Manipur after 28 months – 864 days to be precise – of internecine ethnic violence that was presided over by the then BJP-led government in the state under chief minister Biren Singh. The visit itself was a desperate move to try and retrieve lost political ground in the state.

THE grand culmination of the successful Voter Adhikar Yatra in Patna, attended by most opposition leaders of the INDIA Alliance, gave a significant boost to the ongoing movement to protect the democratic and secular character of the Indian republic that is under constant threat from the RSS-backed Modi regime.