national

BJP's stroke of genius, India's camp-avoidance at the G7

The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) current decisions appear to be based more on India's developing political science than they have in the past.

Political analysts were kept on their toes trying to understand the twists and turns in state politics in Maharashtra as a result of the BJP's decision to give the Chief Ministership to Eknath Shinde, the leader of the Shiv Sena's breakaway faction, and ask former CM Devendra Fadnavis to serve as his deputy.

Four out of the five newspapers in our basket have published editorials on the Maharashtra development, as was to be expected.

The general thesis underlying the Edits from IE, ToI, ET, and DH is that the BJP action is tactical. According to ToI, Fadnavis' haste to succeed Ajit Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party as CM in 2019 caused the BJP to suffer a terrible loss.

According to IE, the BJP's choice to name Shinde as CM will prevent the party from developing a reputation as a predator among allies.

Although Uddhav Thackeray should have resigned after giving a statement in the Assembly, DH maintains that the BJP would have the final say in the state's new government.

The daily also stress that there is still work to be done to preserve the Hindutva legacy of the Shiv Sena brand, and that additional public demonstrations may take place in the coming days.

IE explains this, while Thackeray is primarily left with MLAs from Mumbai. ToI emphasise that the BJP would now be able to refute Thackeray's treachery accusation while pointing out that Shinde has MLAs from important Satara and Thane regions.

The BMC, or Mumbai municipal, elections that are scheduled for later this year are correctly noted by the daily as the new political experiment's immediate test.

In its Edit, the ET criticises the legitimacy of the mandate, stating that "the problem with such hyper-cynical politics is that it weakens democracy, and does so in full view. People begin to lose hope, and the vote becomes meaningless.

However, none of the dailies noted how the caste dynamics were a constraint on the BJP's ability to reasonably assume that it would soon surpass the halfway point in the state Assembly on its own.

India played a significant role in the deft manoeuvring at the two back-to-back summits, the BRICS and G7, to avoid the developed countries' camp politics.

The Huffington Post's Edit on the G7 Summit in Bavaria, Germany, looked at India's decision not to join the US-led Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, widely regarded as a rival to China's Belt and Road Initiative and worth USD 600 billion (BRI). India did, however, sign the G7 statements on "Just energy transition" and "Resilient democracies."

TH emphasises that India would be closely observed to ensure that the civil society, as well as the freedoms of expression and ideas, are protected.

In a speech he gave to a gathering of the BJP's parliamentary party, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India is indeed avoiding camp politics in the global system. In addition, India refrained from joining the anti-Western rhetoric of China and Russia during the BRICS Summit since New Delhi pursues an autonomous foreign policy guided by its own national interests.

The usage of 19 of the 20 most frequently used plastics, including spoons, bowls, plates, ice cream sticks, and other items, will be forbidden starting on Friday under the new plastic ban, which is taking effect today.

In its Edit, ToI examines the difficulties of putting the prohibition into practise while asserting that it will hurt small business owners and force them to breach the law. Modi's pledge to the UN to ban single-use plastics is part of India's effort to show the rest of the world that it is serious about fighting climate change.

The newspaper correctly points out that excessive plastic use has wreaked havoc on human and marine life, clogged city sewers, and that plastic remnants are now even being discovered in blood testing, after first appearing in water samples.

ToI claims that the government should collaborate with business to find creative solutions, but it would take too long and much harm would already have been done by then. Prior to the invention of plastic, people ate alloo-tikki and ate off of leaves.