THE decision to open a corridor from the Indian side to the Gurudwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, Pakistan is one of the rare instances when the two governments of India and Pakistan have agreed to cooperate after a long period of stalemate and tensions between the two countries.The corridor from the Dera Baba Nanak Gurudwara in Gurdaspur district of Punjab to the Darbar Sahib Gurudwara where Guru Nanak Dev spent 18 years of his life, is being opened to mark the 550th birth anniversary of the founder of Sikhism next year.

SRI LANKA has been plunged into a political and constitutional crisis due to the arbitrary steps taken by Maithripala Sirisena in the past three weeks. The president dismissed Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and swore in his erstwhile opponent Mahinda Rajapaksa as the prime minister on October 26.It may be recalled that Sirisena, who belongs to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), had broken away from Rajapaksa. He had fought the elections and defeated Rajapaksa in January 2015 in alliance with Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP).

THE petition challenging Article 35A of the constitution before the Supreme Court is meant to open up another divisive issue in tune with the Hindutva politics espoused by the BJP and the RSS.Article 35A was introduced by a presidential order in 1954 to safeguard the rights and guarantee the unique identity of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. This provision gives the Jammu and Kashmir legislature the right to decide who are permanent residents of the state and confer on them special rights in acquisition of property, in public sector jobs and social welfare.

THE no-confidence motion discussed and voted upon in the Lok Sabha on July 20 became an occasion for exposure of the four-year record of the Modi government.Though the motion was in the name of a Telugu Desam MP, whose purpose was to highlight the betrayal by the Modi government of the commitment made to Andhra Pradesh to declare it as a special category state, the opposition was able to focus on a range of issues concerning the many failures of the Modi government.

THE news about the legislations being brought forth to abolish the University Grants Commission (UGC) and to set-up a Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) has brought into sharp focus the assault on education and, in particular, higher education, that is taking place under the Modi government.The various steps taken in the sphere of education are motivated by a twin motive – neoliberalism and Hindutva ideology.