China has never been an expansionist power. On the contrary, it has been a victim of expansionism.

Turkish currency Lira fell nearly 40 percent in 2018. The currency has been in free fall yet again, following the announcement of results of municipal elections in Turkey last month.

But why should a country’s sovereign currency fall because of municipal election results?

What has happened in Turkey - both in its municipal elections and how its 'supreme leader' Recep Erdogan has controlled institutions - has many lessons for here in India. 

The US suddenly made an announcement on 22 April 2019, that it will end all Iran sanction waivers after 2 May 2019. These waivers were granted to eight countries for an initial period of 180 days, after the US had imposed sanctions against Iran’s oil export on 5 November 2018.

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Just four years ago, high prices had put pulses beyond the reach of the poor, and the middle-classes were skimping on it. In mid-2015, at the height of the price shock in pulses, I accosted people at Delhi’s Khari Baoli spice market, for a TV programme on the issue. Ira Shukla, a former school teacher had said, “Instead of twice a day, we are eating watery dal once a day, because rates have almost doubled. Poor people cannot eat it; middle-classes like us manage somehow.”

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With the BJP leadership tom-tomming their hawkish national security credentials by repeatedly invoking the 28/29 September 2016 ‘surgical strike’, former Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, in an interview on 2 May to Hindustan Times, asserted that “multiple surgical strikes took place during our tenure too. For us, military operations were meant for strategic deterrence, and giving a befitting reply to anti-India forces, than to be used for vote garnering exercises.”

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