Editorial

The Delhi High Court judgments ordering the release on bail of three of the anti-CAA student activists charged under UAPA is a long-awaited breath of oxygen. It offers some relief from the Delhi Police witch-hunt that since last year has been been choking off democracy’s life-breath: protests against unjust, discriminatory and fascist laws like the CAA, NRC and NPR have inspired courage and hope in the struggle for democracy.

PM Modi’s televised tears have come far too late to convey empathy for those killed by Covid-19 or regret for his regime’s callousness that led to those deaths. It is clear that he does not weep out of sorrow for us and the loved ones we have lost, nor out of regret for his own role in those deaths - but because he would like us to feel sorry for him and spare him the criticism he has earned. But Modi cannot play a victim to the calamity he himself has brought upon the country.

In lieu of Editorial

The first major elections held in the shadow of Covid19 pandemic and its complement, the brutal lockdown and its disastrous aftermath, have produced a stunning outcome. Till as late as early October when nominations began for the elections, opinion polls were predicting an emphatic majority for the NDA in Bihar. It was expected to be an easy cakewalk for Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar, nobody gave the opposition even an outside chance. A month later, most exit polls however  predicted a clear edge for the RJD-Left-INC opposition alliance.

Power-hungry BJP which hijacked power in Bihar in 2017 by colluding with Nitish Kumar against the emphatic anti-BJP 2015 mandate of the people of Bihar, had thought it could steal the Bihar elections again by using Covid19 and the lockdown as shields for the NDA.