IN his speech at last December’s COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, Prime Minister Modi surprised everyone, perhaps even his own official delegation, by making five rather striking promises to reduce emissions even more than India had pledged in its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) tabled under the Paris Agreement (PA).

THE government celebrated ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ to mark 75 years of India’s Independence in a big way. Like many other burning issues of the people, the major issue of road accidents/fatalities and the miseries of the victims and their families was also ignored or sidelined. The government has recently released the statistics and an analysis report on road accidents.India stands number one in the world in road accidents and related deaths. As many as 1,31,714 persons were killed and 3,48,279 injured due to road accidents in 2020.

ON the last day of his tenure as chief justice on August 26, Justice Ramana referred the pleas on political parties promising freebies to a three-judge bench to be decided by the new chief justice of India.  The Supreme Court, getting into the freebies issue, is an example of misplaced priorities and entering into an area which is not the business of the higher judiciary.Prime Minister Narendra Modi stoked the issue of freebies when he derided the ‘revdi’ culture and blamed the opposition for it in a public meeting in July.  A public interest litigation petition was filed by a Delhi BJP lea

 IN the first week of the Monsoon session, both Houses of Parliament witnessed adjournment as the Left and other Opposition MPs demanded suspension of listed business to discuss issues such as spiralling inflation and enhanced GST rates on many essential commodities, the Agnipath scheme and growing autocracy.

THE Godavari River created havoc flooding vast areas from July 9 to 20. A Flood of such a scale in July was the first time in almost a decade. The flood severely hit people's normal life. The worst affected were the proposed oustees of the Polavaram project while the ‘lanka’ (island) villages were also damaged. The CPI(M) organised various relief measures in four villages on the Godavari riverbed.