At one end of Delhi, in the verdant campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, scholars gathered to update one another on the current trends in Historical Materialism.

On 26th December 2004 the then UPA-I Government promulgated an ordinance -- The Patents (Amendment) Ordinance, 2004.

Newsclick discusses with Shankar Raghuraman, Senior Journalist, the election results in three North-Eastern states of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. He says the results are a bad news for the Congress Party. Its influence is gradually declining in this region which was its traditional stronghold. Tripura has elected the Left Front to power for the fifth consecutive term, largely because of the participatory politics it practised. The Naga People's Front has won the majority in Nagaland and in Meghalaya, the Congress Party got the majority.

A change of regime is often dangerous. After 1947, the Congress party had ruled the country for the most part.

The execution of Afzal Guru by the Indian state as well as the manner in which it was done, must rank as one of its most shameful acts. That death penalty should be carried out in this day and age, that too without letting his family get a last chance to see him, shows the Indian state in very poor light indeed.

I’m as cynical as the next policy wonk, but sometimes even I am surprised at the perverse outcomes of some of those policies. Take the bizarre scenario outlined in the new agricultural outlook report from the FAO and the OECD regarding the projected rise in ethanol trade – ethanol traded for ethanol – between the United States and Brazil.

Last two weeks have brought out that cyber

The writing is on the wall, although there are not too many in the UPA government in Delhi willing or for that matter, able to read it. After Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Punjab and to some extent even Uttarakhand made it clear that they were not at all enamored of the Congress, Andhra Pradesh has also demonstrated that it is no mood to bring back the party to power in the state.

 

 The Congress' miserable performance (barring Manipur) is the overarching theme in the recently held assembly elections in February, March 2012. Senior journalist Seema Mustafa comments for Newsclick.