Counterview

By Haider Abbas*  The day, since the West Bengal (WB) polls ended, the Union Home Minister is totally invisible! BJP, despite its most robust campaign, peppered with heavy communalism, could not even smell victory, as the Trinamool Congress (TMC) under Mamta Banerjee romped with her third time tenure in a row. It did not come late to political pundits that had Election Commission (EC) not played to the gallery of BJP, as it did in Bihar lately, BJP was not to cross even the 20 figure in WB.

By Our Representative  The All Assam Engineer’s Association (AAEA), a Guwahati-based organisation, has said that the “tragic death of 18 wild Asiatic elephants due to electrocution by lightning within seconds”, as claimed by the State government, “can be justified only with an absurd argument.”

By Our Representative  In a letter addressed to Dilip Walse Patil, Maharashtra home minister, the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JJM) has demanded that 84-year-old Father Stan Swamy should be immediately shifted to a good hospital in view of his fragile health.

By Arjun Kumar, Ritika Gupta, Sakshi Sharda With the exodus of millions of migrant workers returning to their villages during second wave of the coronavirus-induced lockdown, the Central government has relinquished its role in the governance. The state governments are now parenting the city governance for their ignored migrants.

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat*  A TV actress, more known for her flirting ways than acting, recently exposed her caste mindset when she said: “Lip tint ko halka sa blush ki tarah laga liya hai because main YouTube pe aane wali hoon aur main achha dikhna chahti hoon. Bhangi ki tarah nahi dikhna chahti hoon..." Simple translation: I am planning to speak to you through my YouTube channel and hence I want to look beautiful and not like the 'Bhangis'.

By Fr Cedric Prakash SJ* Pope Francis has once again thrown a challenge to Catholic Communicators in his annual message for World Communications Day which this year falls on Sunday 16 May. In his typically direct yet profound way, he focuses his message on the theme ‘Come and See (Jn 1:46). Communicating by Encountering People Where and as They Are.’

By Sandeep Pandey, Divesh Ranjan*  In the recently concluded elections in Assam, it turns out that if the votes of Mahajot alliance led by Congress Party and the alliance of Assam Jatiya Parishad and Raijor Dal are combined then they would have been in a position to prevent Bhartiya Janata Party from forming a government in Assam. If 14 seats where Mahajot alliance and AJP-RD votes are together greater than Mitrajot alliance led by BJP votes are subtracted from 75 seats won by Mitrajot and added to the Mahajot and AJP-RD combine strength of 51, it yields a different result.

Counterview Desk  More than 150 academics, activists, students, lawyers, filmmakers and concerned citizens from Assam, North-East and across the country have taken strong exception to the deployment of security forces in the midst of a raging pandemic in Mikir Bamuni Grant, Nagaon district, Assam, to push forward the construction of Azure Power's solar power plant.

Prof Ujjwal K Chowdhury*  Covid infection has reached an inflection point in India which is now the Corona capital of the world, and the citizens need a warlike initiative to vaccinate the entire nation, of which just 14 crore out of 140 crores population has been vaccinated till now.