Mamata’s standoff meets constitutional wall
West Bengal’s political transition moved from defiance to formal closure after Governor R N Ravi dissolved the state Legislative Assembly with effect from May 7, ending Mamata Banerjee’s attempt to prolong her stay as chief...
Full storyHAPPENING NOW
Stalin lets allies weigh Vijay offer
Tamil Nadu’s unsettled verdict has pushed the DMK’s smaller allies into the centre...
in Happening Now May 8 ·Hormuz clash tests fragile Iran truce
American and Iranian forces exchanged fire in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday,...
in Happening Now May 8 ·Nashik TCS case turns sharper
Nashik police have arrested Nida Khan, a suspended Tata Consultancy Services employee and...
in Happening Now May 8 ·
Opinion
Appeal
The legacy of IPA, founded by Nikhil Chakravartty, the doyen of journalism in India, to keep the flag of independent media flying high, is facing the threat of extinction due to the effect of the Covid pandemic. Only an emergency funding can avert such an eventuality. We appeal to all those who believe in the freedom of expression to contribute to this noble cause.Selecting Chief Minister Of West Bengal Is A Delicate Task For BJP Leadership
By Dr. Gyan Pathak BJP won the West Bengal election with the most recognizable face leading from the grassroots to the state level against Mamata led TMC is Suvendu Adhikari. He also defeated TMC supremo CM Mamata Banerjee from Bhabanipur Vidhan Sabha constituency. Naturally, he is seen as the...
RSS Ensured BJP Victory By Consolidating Hindu Votes In Bengal Polls
By Arun Srivastava Notwithstanding nursing an intense dislike for Narendra Modi, the RSS played existential role in Hindu consolidation in Bengal and transforming it from a fragmented demographic into a unified voting bloc. Through grassroots mobilization it motivated thousands of local apolitical Hindu youths to come forward to protect...
Vijay At The Gates, Dravidian Rivals In The Shadows As Churning Continues In Tamil Nadu
By T N Ashok CHENNAI: For the first time in nearly six decades, Tamil Nadu stands suspended between the collapse of an old political order and the uncertain birth of a new one. The stunning rise of actor-turned-politician Vijay and his fledgling party, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam, has broken the...
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s 15 Year Tenure Has Ended In Infamy
By Anjan Roy KOLKATA: Mamata Banerjee’s chief minister tenure is ending in infamy. It should not have inevitably ended that way. Even after her stunning loss, she is refusing to resign and now demanding what was an anathema for her all along— President’s Rule for Bengal. Her cringing to...
Election Commission’s Implementation Of SIR Impacted Results In Bengal Polls
By Krishna Jha It was in June 2025, five months ahead of the Assembly elections in Bihar that Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls was announced by Election Commission. The Commission cited concerns that several voters in the state were illegal immigrants who had obtained voter identity cards...
Economic Distress Of Common Indians Deepens But No Corrective Measures Seen
By Nilotpal Basu Dark clouds of deepening economic distress are looming over the country’s people with dire predictions for price rise adding to the twin crises of raging unemployment and stagnating wages that have been haunting the country for several years now. The US-Israel war on Iran and its...
Growing Support For Far Right In Europe Has Been Eroding Democracy
By Francesca De Benedetti LONDON: Last summer, Giorgia Meloni’s Italian government approved a so-called “anti-Gandhi law,” which criminalizes even nonviolent protests and passive resistance. The highly controversial “Security Decree” was recently followed by a further one, introducing measures such as preventive detention during public gatherings and signalling a shift...
Mamata’s Defiance Makes A Mockery Of Constitutional Propriety
By K Raveendran Mamata Banerjee’s refusal to resign after a decisive electoral defeat is a political act dressed up as constitutional ambiguity. It may create noise, spectacle and temporary uncertainty, but it does not create a sustainable claim to office. A chief minister holds power only so long as...
Delimitation In Assam And SIR In West Bengal Top Factors For BJP’s Win
By Dr. Gyan Pathak The data for the 2026 election results clearly show that delimitation of 2023 in Assam and the SIR of 2026 in West Bengal were chief factors of BJP’s spectacular wins in both the states respectively. As for the surge in the BJP’s support base, there...
Mamata’s Refusal To Quit Has Some Similarities With Trump After 2020 U.S. Polls
By Ashok Nilakantan Ayers In the spring of 2026, what was expected to be a routine democratic exercise in West Bengal has spiralled into one of the most fraught constitutional moments in India’s recent political history. The votes have been counted, the results declared, and yet power remains contested—not...
TVK Supremo Vijay’s Numbers Game: Power Within Reach, But Not Yet In Hand
By T N Ashok CHENNAI: In Tamil Nadu, electoral earthquakes are not new. But the 2026 verdict has produced something rarer than a landslide—it has delivered a political paradox. Vijay, the state’s newest political force and its most electrifying public figure, has shattered the long-entrenched dominance of the Dravidian...
Not Just TMC Corruption, BJP’s Hindutva Agenda Played A Big Role In Bengal Polls
By Sagarneel Sinha After the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, many political commentators started writing that the influence of the Hindutva politics pursued by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has started waning. However, the results of Haryana, Maharashtra, Delhi and Bihar forced them to revisit their...
BJP’s Bengal Victory And A New Emerging Geopolitics Of The East
By M A Hossain The urge to call it a “political miracle” is understandable. After all, the fall of Trinamool Congress (TMC) after fifteen years in power and the sweeping ascent of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in West Bengal looks, at first glance, like a sudden rupture. But...
Election Loss: Tough Task Ahead For LDF In Kerala
By P. Sreekumaran THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The hallmark of a political party or front is its ability to turn even adversity to account. Such an opportunity has presented itself to the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala, which has been shaken to the core by the devastating defeat it has...
The Billionaire Sugar Brothers Backing Trump’s Effort To ‘Take Cuba’
By Daniel Delgado NEW YORK: Trump is a billionaire president, with billionaire friends, who represents the billionaire class in the United States. Evidence of this abounds, and when it comes to Cuba, there is no clearer example than his relationship with the Fanjul family. Described by Forbes as one...
Fall Of Two Regional Pillars Mamata And Stalin Weakens Fight For Federal India
By T N Ashok The verdict from India’s sprawling five-state assembly elections of 2026 has redrawn the country’s political map with a force few had anticipated. What began as a routine electoral cycle across West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry has culminated in something far more consequential:...
Love, Deaths And Stormy Sessions At 28 Dean Street
By Nitya Chakraborty Karl Marx was born in Germany on May 5, 1818 and died in London on March 14, 1883. Three days after his demise on March 17, Friedrich Engels in his speech at the grave of his best friend and partner in their bid to change the...
India’s 2026 Assembly Elections Outcome Was Partly Influenced By Generation Z
By R. Suryamurthy The temptation, in the immediate aftermath of the 2026 assembly verdict, is to read it as a familiar story of partisan expansion and opposition decline—of one party’s geographic spread and another’s organisational fatigue. That narrative, while not entirely wrong, is analytically insufficient. It explains who gained...
