Tripura has just passed one electoral test and faces another within weeks. Counting in the village committee polls of the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council on 5 October delivered a commanding result for the ruling TIPRA Motha, which had won 2,803 of the 3,470 seats declared by the evening, about 80 percent. The BJP
DA Editorial Desk| dhruba deka The arrest on 17 October of six surrendered militants from the NLFT and the ATTF, after they allegedly blocked a national highway in West Tripura demanding proper rehabilitation, is a symptom of something larger than a traffic disruption. In a separate blockade at Baramura, reports say it ended with former
DA Editorial Team For three days this week, student-led protests turned violent in Tirana, and parliament cancelled a scheduled session. Violence is never the answer, and Albanian authorities are entitled to keep order. But the question behind the protests deserves a better answer than a cancelled sitting. Who decides what happens to a country’s coastline?
DA Editorial desk | Sara Debbarma The Houthi missile strike on the presidential palace in Aden on 15 October killed five people and wounded 16. It was the first attack on the palace in the current phase of Yemen’s long war, and it would be alarming enough on its own. But it came alongside something
DA Editorial Desk | Dhruba Deka Every barrel of oil that reaches an Indian refinery has passed through the hands of seafarers, and many of those seafarers are Indian. This week another tanker was reported struck near the Strait of Hormuz, after maritime officials counted 12 vessels attacked between 5 and 11 October. Brent crude
DA Editorial Team Brazil votes on 25 October in a runoff between President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, after a first round in which the challenger finished ahead, with about 47.5 percent of valid votes to Lula’s roughly 44.7 percent. Most polls had predicted the opposite, which is a reminder that
DA Editorial Desk |Sara Debbarma The International Monetary Fund has raised its forecast for India’s growth to 7.0 percent for 2026 and 2027, up 0.6 points from July for this year. Policymakers will be pleased, and they have earned some satisfaction. In a year when a war in the Middle East has pushed up energy
DA Editorial Desk |Dhruba Deka India and the United States have spent most of 2026 announcing that a trade deal is close. This week Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said the first tranche is finalised and in legal drafting. It is welcome news. It is also the kind of news we have heard before, since the
DA Editorial Team Every year, the retreat of the monsoon brings a false sense of relief. Roads dry, rivers recede and attention turns to festivals. But stagnant water left in drains, discarded containers, tyres and rooftop tanks becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes, and the weeks after the rains are often when cases of dengue
DA Editorial Desk | Sara Debbarma The timing was stark. On Friday, October 9, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, the South African jurist and former UN human rights chief who once served as a judge at the International Criminal Court. Within hours, the United States announced sweeping sanctions on
