JUST 5 per cent of Indians own more than 60 per cent of the country’s wealth while the bottom 50 per cent of India’s population possess only three per cent of the wealth. From 2012 to 2021, 40 per cent of the wealth created in India has gone to just one per cent of the population and only a mere 3 per cent of the wealth has gone to the bottom 50 per cent.

BEFORE the dust has settled over the brazen attempt by the UGC to anchor a campaign titled ‘India: The Mother of Democracy’ a second salvo has been fired. UGC seeks to set out a Hindutva narrative of the Indian past over the last 5,000 years. As espoused by the likes of Savarkar and Golwalkar, it reduces the complex genesis of India of interface and assimilation of many diverse traditions.

KERALA'S economy achieved a commendable growth rate of 12.8 per cent for the financial year 2021-22, according to the report of the National Statistical Office, released on November 15, 2022. That this translates into an increase of 14.4 per cent compared to the growth rate of the pre-pandemic year 2018-19, adds more glitter to Kerala's accomplishment. There is one more reason to highlight the growth performance of the state, which is that the manufacturing sector emerges as the second largest growing sub-sector next to mining and quarrying during this period.

THE UGC circular signed by M Jagdish Kumar,  former vice chancellor of JNU whose infamy for undermining  democracy and critical thinking in the university had been widely covered by the media. Therefore, his appointment as the UGC chairman did not surprise many. Now that he is anchoring the effort to legitimise narratives of Hindutva proponents like Savarkar and Golwalkar in the  official academic space of Indian universities, it only betrays his place in the hierarchy of the scheme of things that RSS and Hindutva forces plan to unleash in the sphere of higher education.

KOCHI, the name describes itself. A city of ports where the Dutch, Portuguese, Jews, and British, all of them have left their imprint, is now governed by the Left Democratic Front and led by its mayor, Anil Kumar of the CPI(M). The metropolitan area of the city  has a population of over 2.1 million and is spread over an area of over 95 square kilometres.A recent visit to the city to meet the elected councilors belonging to the LDF revealed a new paradigm of a compassionate city.