ON Monday, June 17, Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, announced, “The Black Sea agreements are no longer in effect.” This was a blunt statement to suspend the Black Sea Grain Initiative that emerged out of intense negotiations in the hours after Russian forces entered Ukraine in February 2022.

THE opening day of the first budget session of the second BJP-IPFT alliance government witnessed a disorderly scene immediately after the session began. CPI(M), Congress, and Tipra Motha MLAs jointly demanded punitive measures against Jadav Lal Nath, the BJP MLA from the 55-Bagpassa constituency, who, in the last assembly session, was caught using pornographic items on his mobile phone while the proceedings of the house were in progress. This scene was captured by some of the house staff and uploaded on social media, where the post instantly went viral.

THE elections to the Greek parliament were held in two phases. The first phase took place in May but yielded inconclusive results, leading to a second phase which was held on June 25, 2023. In this second phase, the Conservative party, New Democracy, succeeded in forming the government.

COMRADE Samsul Haque, CPI(M) Tripura state committee member, and a member of the Tripura legislative assembly elected in the recent assembly elections, a prominent peasant leader well known  for his dedication to farmers’ causes, passed away due to a fatal heart attack on the midnight of 18th July, 2023. He experienced severe chest pain while at the new MLA Hostel in the Capital Complex, Agartala.

AFTER a textbook launch on July 14, Chandrayaan-3 is orbiting the earth in a highly elliptical orbit and, at the time of going to press, has executed three out of five orbit-raising burns as per schedule. As of now, the spacecraft is 228 km from Earth at its nearest and 51,400 km from Earth at its farthest. Soon a final burn will make it leap forward till it is captured by the moon’s gravity and starts elliptical orbits around it. There it will execute similar maneuvers in reverse to gradually lower its lunar orbit till it stabilises in a circular 100 km orbit above the moon’s surface.