The deathly rattle of missiles and drones may have eased following the April 7 announcement of a two-week ceasefire by the principal combatants of the 39-day US-Israel-Iran war. The truce was hammered out hours before President Donald Trump’s deadline—to obliterate “a whole civilisation”—was about to expire. Yet across the Gulf, there is little illusion that…
Puducherry’s relatively small 30-member assembly is not going to face the straight fight expected of it on April 9, when voters in the Union Territory face an unsteady triangle and candidates visibly disgruntled with seat-sharing arrangements. On one side is the National Democratic Alliance (NDA); on the other the Congress and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK),…
For more than 15 years, Himanta Biswa Sarma has been the most reliable electoral engine in Assam, winning assembly seats, Lok Sabha contests and even Rajya Sabha numbers when arithmetic alone fell short. He delivered for the Congress. He delivered for the BJP after switching in 2015. But April 9, 2026, is different. For the…
When he became chief minister for a second consecutive time in 2021, Pinarayi Vijayan broke a 40-year jinx that had seen his CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) alternate in power. Riding its globally feted management of the COVID-19 pandemic, it dashed the UDF hopes of turning its 19-1…
For decades leading up to 2021, Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin was seen as a leader-in-waiting, biding his time under the shadow of his father, the late Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) titan, M. Karunanidhi. The 2026 assembly election, then, marks a distinct and more personal milestone for him and the DMK. The 73-year-old CM…
On March 26, the scorching sky over Laudoha village in West Bengal’s Pandabeswar shimmered before the chop-chop sound of the copter blades grew louder. As the helicopter carrying chief minister Mamata Banerjee landed, the vast crowds that had gathered to listen to her broke out into the Trinamool Congress (TMC) war cry: ‘Jotoi Koro Hamla,…
One a veteran, another a fiery fighter, the third a political scion who has proved his mettle, and the fourth a master of the political game. The coming assembly elections are a contest of towering personalities, each commanding an arena of national import. In West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, seeking a fourth consecutive term, faces a…
Three weeks into the Iran war, and the International Energy Agency has already declared that the energy asset disruption in the oil-rich Middle East is equivalent to the two major oil crises of the 1970s and the 2022 natural gas crisis after Russia invaded Ukraine put together. Worse, while the war started on February 28…
The 23rd edition of the India Today conclave is a special occasion. india today magazine has completed 50 years of publication. If you look at what the India Today Group is today, you will see a multi-media powerhouse reaching the minds of 750 million people. Yet it all began with a single magazine. The fountainhead…
Kapil had his Devils; Dhoni his squadron of reliable soldiers, and Rohit a team of boisterous boys. But you’d be hard put to call the current iteration of the Men in Blue, who ensured that India became the first nation to successfully defend the ICC T20 World Cup title, SKY’s Stars. Falling for that tempting…
