THE dreaded political apparatus known colloquially as “bulldozer justice” — the extrajudicial demolition of property via executive fiat — has officially arrived in West Bengal. For years, political observers watched the deployment of heavy earthmoving machinery as a tool of state intimidation across BJP-ruled northern and central India, often dismissing it as a phenomenon entirely alien to the unique socio-political fabric of Bengal. That illusion has now been completely shattered.

ON MAY 1, 2026, the United States Department of Defence finalised classified artificial intelligence contracts with eight corporations: OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, Oracle, SpaceX, and the startup Reflection AI. These agreements will deploy large language models on classified military networks. The one major AI laboratory that was excluded, Anthropic, was dropped because the Trump administration blacklisted it for insisting on safety guardrails.

“Throw the anti-worker labour codes into the Arabian Sea!”

THE West Asian war has pushed world oil prices well beyond $100 per barrel. The Indian government, which had kept domestic prices of oil products unchanged until the elections to several state legislatures had been completed, has now started raising their prices; it has already raised prices in three rounds and is no doubt going to raise them further. And a large number of economists, not all belonging to the Bhartiya Janata Party stable, have seen such “passing on” of higher world oil prices to domestic consumers as the obvious and natural thing to do.

The paper leaks in the NEET UG Examination (medical undergraduate admissions) have pushed the future of nearly 22.79 lakh students into deep uncertainty, anxiety, and distress. Ongoing CBI investigations have exposed a disturbing network of organised malpractice operating across Maharashtra, Haryana, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Kashmir. Under the guise of coaching institutes, “guess papers,” and “mock tests,” question papers were allegedly sold through a well-coordinated multi-state racket.