Left, Right & Centre

11 days after the BJP won elections in four out of five states, finally, the chief ministers have been announced - and the BJP has repeated chief ministers for all the four states. Pushkar Singh Dhami will continue as Uttarakhand Chief Minister despite losing his own seat, and Pramod Sawant has been retained as the Goa Chief Minister after several consultations. The only remaining question is: Will Keshav Prasad be the deputy Chief Minister of UP? Will it be Yogi Adityanath's pick or the central BJP leadership's?

With the BJP's sweep in the recently concluded state polls, the party's tally is set to cross 100 in the upper house. Will it be smooth sailing for the ruling party in parliament from here on?

Just when you thought Covid was over and life was getting back to normal, comes a dire warning from the World Health Organisation. The WHO says the increase in cases could be just the tip of the iceberg. So, the recent uptick in Covid cases which we are seeing all around the world could be just a fraction of the true cases and that's partly linked to a sharp decline in testing rates around the globe. What's more, there are reports now of a new variant of COVID-19 which has been detected in Israel. India is presently on alert as the numbers in parts of Asia and in Europe appear to be seriously spiking.

Mahima Datla, the MD of Biological E -- whose vaccine Corbevax was launched today for 12-to 14-year-olds in the country -- today indicated that the affordability of her vaccine was one of the key goals they worked for. The Corbevax has been made available to the government at a cost of Rs. 145 and Rs. 10 as taxes -- the lowest in the world. Calling it the "most affordable" vaccine, Ms Datla told NDTV today that the firm "needed to keep affordability at the centre of this".

Antibody response to Corbevax vaccine is very good and in children it is better than adults, says Dr NK Arora, Chairman of COVID Working Group, National technical advisory group on immunization.

The hijab is not an essential religious practice, the Karnataka High Court said as it backed a ban on hijabs in classrooms today, weeks after violent protests in many parts of the state against the restriction. Already there are objections to that order - with a petition being filed in the Supreme Court to stay the order. While the Karnataka High Court order is based on a detailed study on past precedent and readings on the use of the hijab, there are some who say that the order comes as a challenge to the notion of diversity that we pride ourselves on in this country. On Left, Right and Centre, we debate: should dress codes apply uniformly to all faiths?

Sonia Gandhi will stay as the Congress chief, said the party after a more than four-hour long meeting over the party's huge defeat in the state polls. This comes as a massive rout in the five states revived searing criticism of the Gandhi family and demands for a complete overhaul and leadership change.

Who will occupy the leadership position among the opposition parties in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls? Who will be the challenger in 2024?

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The election results of five states will be out in a couple of days but a bigger challenge is emerging for the government - the economy. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has created complete chaos on stock markets around the world, and is bound to hit all of us here in India with high fuel prices and a slowdown in growth.