THE election notification for 119 constituencies of Telangana Assembly was issued on November 12. After a long tussle, the ‘Mahakutami’, a four party alliance of Congress, Telugu Desam Party, Telangana Jana Samithi and CPI, announced its first list of 65 candidates from the Congress party on November 12. The TDP, TJS, and CPI are to contest in 14, 8, and 3 seats respectively. However, the other alliance parties are negotiating for more seats and the CPI has alleged that injustice has been done in allotment of seats.

“THE countdown of BJP has begun. It has failed to solve the problems of the common man, hence as the elections come nearer, the BJP starts chanting the temple issue. They do not even have the patience to wait for the Supreme Court decision.” This was stated by Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the CPI(M) addressing the ‘meet the press’ programme at Raipur Press Club in Chattisgarh.

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.

ALONG with the revival of the issues of the Ram temple at Ayodhya, the BJP-RSS combine has opened a new front with communal intent. That is the renaming of cities and places which have a Muslim cultural lineage. The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh led by Adityanath, has gone on a name changing spree.  Allahabad, one of the foremost educational and cultural centres of Uttar Pradesh has been renamed officially as Prayagraj.