By Sidharth Mishra

Many may differ with the government on the issue its attitude towards farm laws and farmers’ agitation, but several among them mat still be on the same page as Prime Minister Narendra Modi on andolanjeevis that is those who live by the agitation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week while speaking in Parliament, appealed to the agitating farmers to end their protest and discuss their demands with the government. He also said that the country needs to be protected against what he called andolanjeevi or those who survive on, by and for protests.

By Sidharth Mishra

Without getting into the debate of the new farm laws being good or bad, let’s come straight to the point. The prolonged standoff between the government and the farmers has brought the National Capital Region (NCR) to a grinding halt.

The all-powerful government of India by deploying 50000 police and para-military personnel, putting spikes on the roads and creating three layers of reinforced cement concrete barriers may have ‘saved’ Delhi from a ‘çhakka jam’ during those three hours on the last Saturday, little realizing that Delhi has been in a state of ‘chakka jam’ for the past two months.

By Sidharth Mishra

On February 14, Chief Minister of Arunanchal Pradesh Pema Khandu would lay at Tawang the foundation stone for a memorial to be built in the remembrance of Major Bob Khathing, an Indian Army officer who played agreat role in establishinging Indian sovereignty in then North Eastern Frontier Agency (NEFA), now Arunachal Pradesh. It was on this day 70 years ago that Maj Khathing saved Tawang for India.   

After Independence, re-establihing Indian sovereignty in NEFA was not an easy task and here Maj Khathing and his guardian angel, Jairamdas Daulatram, played a big role. About Daulatram historical references are limited to him being a representative from Sindh and later East Punjab in the Constituent Assembly. It was, however, after Independence — during his tenure as the Governor of Assam between 1950 and 1956 — that he played the role of being a nation-builder.

By Sidharth Mishra

January 26 became a sacrosanct day in Indian history much before India became a Republic on this day in 1950. It was on this day that the annual session of the Indian National Congress in 1930 passed the resolution of ‘Purna Swaraj’ setting for the country the goal of complete independence.

This date was chosen to proclaim ourselves as Republic in 1950 because putting our constitution into action signified, we becoming a sovereign country completely detaching ourselves from the umbilical cord of having a dominion status under the British – Purna Swaraj.

By Sidharth Mishra

The siege of Delhi by the farmers sitting on the periphery is not the only blockade which the national Capital is facing. There is a siege within Delhi too, a fallout of the garbage politics being engaged into by rival political parties – the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

The civic employees belonging to the three corporations -- North, South and East, have gone without salaries and former employees without pension for months together, forcing them to hang their brooms. The result of this has been filth strewn all over the national Capital, threatening spread of disease thanks to poor hygienic conditions.

By Sidharth Mishra

A year after the first anti-Covid advisory was issued by the government, the vaccination drive was launched last Saturday. Even by conservative estimates, the complete implementation of the immunity programme and rise of herd immunity could take the full year.

Thus, as aptly mentioned by some it’s just the beginning of the end. Even as we had started to breath somewhat easy about Covid being reigned in, the country is being threatened by the most devious Avian Flu or the bird flu.

By Sidharth Mishra

The fight over the legacy of Netaji, which more than the obvious, has been propelled by the gains to be made in the upcoming assembly polls in West Bengal, has inadvertently come to affect a part history integral to his heritage, which has largely gone unnoticed.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is celebrating the upcoming 125th birth anniversary of charismatic freedom fighter Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose as Parakaram Diwas, and the Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has contributed his bit renaming the more than 150-years-old Howrah-Kalka Mail as Netaji Express.

By Sidharth Mishra

The anti- Covid vaccination drive has rolled on. With the highest number of infections in the world after the United States, India is developing two indigenous COVID-19 vaccines.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the preparedness for Covid-19 vaccination programme on Saturday and claimed to inoculate 300 million of its 1.35 billion people free of charge in the first six to eight months of this year. While the pandemic may have added a new item on the political agenda of our country, with both the ruling establishment and the opposition undoing each other, the silver lining is that the vaccination drive would be supervised by Union Health Minister Dr Harshvardhan.