India Today 26 December 2022

In India, we tend to focus on the central government and its policymaking, often forgetting that we are not a unitary state. The makers of our Constitution decided against having a unitary model like that of the UK, or a federation of states that the US has, but instead evolved a judicious blend of the two. What makes India a truly federal union is how the powers are divided between the Union government and the states, with certain subjects being put on a concurrent list for better coordination. The Union List currently has 97 subjects listed as its exclusive preserve, including defence, foreign affairs, railways and national highways, posts and telegraphs, foreign trade and commerce and the banking and financial systems, among others. The 28 states have untrammelled jurisdiction over 59…

For sharp analysis on topical issues by the editors of INDIA TODAY, log on to www.indiatoday.in/india-today-magazine-insight STORY OF THE DAY: Why 2023 could be a do-ordie election year for KCR By Amarnath K. Menon The Telangana CM will need a third assembly poll win to give steam to his party’s national expansion plans and pitch himself against Modi in 2024 https://bit.ly/3HBdSwZ FROM THE STATES: MADHYA PRADESH Who is Raja Pateria, the Congress leader who allegedly said ‘kill PM Modi’? By Rahul Noronha The Brahmin leader from Bundelkhand has been arrested by the MP police and also served a show-cause notice by the Congress https://bit.ly/3FODeGz SPORTS: CRICKET Why Rohit Sharma’s Mirpur ODI inning shows ‘the Hitman’ is back Amitabh Srivastava India narrowly lost the match against Bangladesh but Sharma’s heroic knock, despite a thumb injury, invited comparisons with Sachin Tendulkar’s ‘Main khelega’…

After over two years of an uneasy and tenuous calm on the Line of Actual Control—India’s de facto border with China—a fracas between soldiers of two nuclear-armed neighbours has led to tensions flaring up again. The setting this time is not Ladakh, but Arunachal Pradesh, on the eastern sector of the LAC. In the early hours of December 9, a “larger than normal” patrol party of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China tried to scale a ridgeline in Yangtse, in the Tawang sector of Arunachal. The area is located around 25 km northeast of Tawang. The build-up to the clash at Yangtse started around the last week of November 2022 when the frequency of face-offs in the sector spiked suddenly. Battalion commanders, alarmed by the sudden increase in sightings of…

The day Bhupendra Patel and his cabinet took oath, there were relaxed smiles all around. Gujarat’s electorate had upturned the very notion of anti-incumbency with a whopping mandate for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP. But as the euphoria of the election ebbs away, people reckon with the reality of the ‘same’ new government. To beat back any creeping sense of stasis, the state leadership has to maintain the tempo of 2022 till 2024, actively working on improving the economy, creating jobs and dealing with a bunch of contentious issues like EWS quota implementation and the Uniform Civil Code (UCC). The BJP has won all 26 Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat since 2014, its vote share increasing every time. Ensuring the trend continues rests squarely on Patel and his team now Gujarat’s…

All are not destined to be born with a silver spoon in their mouth. But a few commoners reach uncommon heights just by virtue of their persistence. It took a four-decade trek for Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, son of a state transport bus driver, to arrive at the summit of Himachal Pradesh’s politics. But like all those who walk in the mountains, the new chief minister will likely find that even taller peaks loom ahead of him. More daunting than he may have imagined when he successfully fought off a stiff challenge to the post from PCC president Pratibha Singh, Mandi MP and widow of former CM Virbhadra Singh. Anti-incumbency is sometimes seen as an abstract sense of disenchantment, but in Himachal there were concrete policy issues at stake. The demand for…

The results to the three bypolls in Uttar Pradesh have brought several positives for the Samajwadi Party (SP)-led Opposition—despite their upset loss in Rampur Sadar—and given much to reflect over for the ruling BJP, which may now have to rethink its 2024 strategy. The 288,000-plus victory margin for Dimple Yadav in the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat has left it in shock—it was expecting at least a close fight in the SP bastion, if not a second upset win. Even the late Mulayam Singh Yadav, four-time MP from here, had won only with 93,000-odd votes in 2019. Says SP spokesperson Dr Ashutosh Verma, “The BJP had claimed that by fielding a Shakya candidate, it would get all non-Yadav OBC votes. However, even Shakya voters supported us.” This turn to events was imparted…