Editorial

After a failed coup attempt following his defeat four years ago, Donald Trump has now staged a dramatic comeback in the US presidential election with the biggest ever Republican victory in last two decades. He has also become the first Republican President to win in terms of the popular vote too. Coupled with the Republican control over the Senate and the Congress, this will make Trump 2.0 much stronger than Trump 1.0, putting him in a more advantageous position to aggressively pursue his rabidly racist and imperialist rightwing agenda.

Bolstered by the surprising Haryana victory for a third successive term, the Sangh brigade is going all out to retain power in Maharashtra and conquer Jharkhand. For public consumption, the BJP's pet slogan in every Assembly election is ensuring 'double engine' government for 'development', but the party is keenly aware that the double engine rhetoric no longer has many takers.

The Badlo Bihar Nyay Yatra (Transform Bihar, Secure Justice), a simultaneous campaign of padyatras or people's marches criss-crossing the state of Bihar from October 16 to 26, will be remembered as one of the most vibrant mass initiatives undertaken by the CPI(ML) in Bihar in recent decades. The idea of a march took shape in early October and in just ten days the party got ready to launch not one or two but some two dozen marches covering at least thirty of Bihar's thirty-eight districts.

Professor GN Saibaba breathed his last at thirty-six past eight in the evening on 12 October 2024. His heart had stopped functioning and doctors were trying desperately to revive him, but it was not to be. Saibaba was 57 years old. He died due to complications arising after the removal of gallstones – a procedure that is seldom life-threatening. But Saibaba did not enter the operation theatre under normal circumstances.

The RSS has now entered its pre-centenary year. The 99th Vijayadashami or foundation day address of RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat gives us some broad idea as to how the RSS is approaching its centenary. We must however always remember that the RSS remains a conspiratorial organisation at its core and in its essential operational mode and the ideological proclamations and public utterances only give us an outline.

Results of the Haryana election have surprised all political observers and defied almost all field reports and opinion and exit polls. For the third consecutive time, the BJP has succeeded in winning Haryana, this time even bettering its 2014 and 2019 records and also the most recent 2024 Lok Sabha elections performance. The Congress has called the results 'counter-intuitive' and 'unacceptable' and raised several serious issues with the Election Commission, questioning various irregularities and complaining of administrative manipulation.

The outcome of the presidential election in Sri Lanka has sprung a major surprise. Rejecting the two parties or coalitions that have long dominated Sri Lankan politics - the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the United National Party - Sri Lanka has opted for a new choice. Anura Kumara Dissanayake, leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has won the presidency as a candidate supported by the coalition National People's Power (NPP).

Even as elections to Haryana and Maharashtra, held simultaneously in a single phase on October 21 in 2019, are being held separately with Maharashtra election dates yet to be announced, the Modi cabinet is once again trying to shift the spotlight to its pet 'One Nation, One Election' (ONOE) agenda. The cabinet has accepted the report submitted by the committee chaired by former President Ramnath Kovind regarding the ONOE scheme and announced its resolve to implement it.

Among India's many new normals, it is now also normal for the Prime Minister to visit the Chief Justice at his residence to take part in a 'private' religious function for the sake of organised publicity. Prime Minister Modi wearing a Maharashtrian cap and offering prayers to Lord Ganesh at CJI Chandrachud's residence on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi is now international news.

On 9 September, Dhanbad, the coal capital of India in the Jharkhand-West Bengal border region witnessed a historic rally of the red flag. The occasion was the declaration of the merger of the Marxist Coordination Committee founded in 1972 by Comrade AK Roy with the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) founded by Comrade Charu Mazumdar in 1969.