PRASHANT KISHOR HAS got his party’s colour branding down to a pat in Bihar. The Janata Dal (United) is green and white, so is the Rashtriya Janata Dal. The Lok Janshakti Party (Ramvilas) is blue, red and green. The Rashtriya Lok Morcha is blue, white and green. The Hindustani Awam Morcha seems to be favouring red, though the official colour is mentioned as yellow in a few places. And the Vikassheel Insaan Party appears to prefer a blue-red palette. Kishor’s Jan Suraaj is clear—bright yellow.
It is prominent in his stole and the 600 yellow cars he has deployed (around 15 in each district). But, will that be enough to get him over the line, wonders Correspondent Badar Bashir. He says that the smaller parties could together upset the calculations of the BJP and the Mahagathbandhan.
His interviews with Upendra Kushwaha of the Rashtriya Lok Morcha, Mukesh Sahani of the Vikassheel Insaan Party and Akhtarul Iman of the All India Majilis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen add heft to the cover story.
Another interesting story in this issue is the one marking one year of the tumult in Bangladesh. Three major stakeholders in the country are represented in our pages through Dr Ziauddin Hyder of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Mohammad Ali Arafat of the Awami League and Shafiqul Alam, press secretary to Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus. It is interesting to listen to all perspectives. For example, Alam says that the Yunus government negotiated with Trump to bring down the tariffs to 20 per cent from the original 37 per cent.
Senior Special Correspondent Kanu Sarda covers THE WEEK Education Conclave held in Delhi last week. May I sincerely thank Union Minister of State Dr Jitendra Singh, our columnist and MP Shashi Tharoor, Director Dr M. Srinivas of AIIMS Delhi, Secretary General Bharat Lal of the National Human Rights Commission, former UGC chairperson Dr M. Jagadesh Kumar, former ISRO chairman Dr S. Somanath, Principal John Varghese of St. Stephen’s College and other dignitaries for making time for us.
In other news, Chief of Bureau (Mumbai) Dnyanesh Jathar and Principal Correspondent Pooja Biraia take stock of the verdicts in the 2006 train bombings and the 2008 Malegaon blasts. Consultant (Sports) Ayaz Memon writes about the Oval thriller. Captain G.R. Gopinath (retd) shares his thoughts about the 2025 Sangita Kalanidhi awardee, violinist R.K. Shriramkumar.
Let me stop on a joyous note, personally. Most of you will remember the Ukraine cover of your favourite newsweekly (August 13, 2023), powered by Photo Editor Bhanu Prakash Chandra’s photos and reporting from the frontlines. For that effort, he was awarded the International Press Institute’s (India Chapter) ‘Award for Excellence in Journalism 2024’. The award comprised Rs1 lakh, a memento and a certificate.
The cover article had a poetic headline: Sunflower Fields and No Man’s Land. I was deeply touched when Ukrainian Ambassador Oleksandr Polishchuk attended the award ceremony and handed Bhanu a bouquet in Ukrainian colours—yellow and blue.
Bhanu generously donated the award money to Gen. Ukrainian, an NGO which “creates innovative psychological rehabilitation programmes for children and adolescents” who suffer from war trauma. Mostly children who have lost one or both parents, “survived captivity, forced deportation and occupation”.
The amount was handed over to Gen. Ukrainian last week by Indian orthopaedic surgeon Dr U.P.R. Menon and Yehor Konovalov, Bhanu’s translator during the assignment.
Bhanu made my day, dear reader. I hope he did the same for you.