OPINION

Last week, the blue-and-white flag of Finland was raised alongside those of its western partners outside NATO's headquarters in Brussels after the Nordic country formally became the 31st member of the transatlantic defensive alliance. Guests at the ceremony, including the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and the Finnish President.

BSESENSEX gained 841.45 points or 1.43 per cent to close at 59,832.97 points while NIFTY gained 239.40 points or 1.38 per cent to close at 17,599.15 points. The broader markets saw BSE100, BSE200 and BSE500 gain 1.30 per cent, 1.28 per cent and 1.36 per cent respectively. BSEMIDCAP was up 1.19 per cent while BSESMALLCAP gained 2.85 per cent.

Over time it has now become difficult for even those born with the silver spoon to come up in the party and that's what has been seen with the political growth of the children of these tall leaders. Their children, after seeing what power means and what it brings, have only followed their fathers' career and the first one who was fielded was Karunakaran's son --  K. Muraleedharan.

Cricket has never had such an enormous and variable audience and therefore, quite rightly so, a plethora of ideas and innovations are cropping up to make the game even more interesting. The famous marketing line of a "customer is always right" is the mantra that the cricketers and the marketeers are vociferously following. The cricket fans want action, glamour, heroes and trend setters and the T20 format is ideally suited to provide that

Fast forward to today, and there are reasons to suspect that the present Akal Takht Jathedar Harpreet Singh has not been acting independently, belying the profundity of his temporal knowledge. He seems to have the trappings of a surrogate of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), led by the Badal family.

The intelligence agency said that it was established that Gershkovich, acting on the instructions of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.

The JD (S) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are also aspiring to make their presence felt in Karnataka during the Lok Sabha elections. However, Bharatiya Janata Party insiders say that half the job in the state is done as the saffron party had reached out to the youth and the new voters in a big way during the hijab crisis and the series of murders of Hindu activists.

Most Republicans in the GOP from former Vice-President Mike Pence to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who has been at the but end of severe and harsh criticism by Trump, however have rallied round Trump denouncing the sealed indictment by the jury as "political persecution: Trump and his son Eric, Vice- President of the Trump businesses, have called the indictment a political witch-hunt".

Trudeau heads a minority government which is backed by the New Democratic Party (NDP), headed by Jagmeet Singh, an arch-Khalistani separatist. Singh's NDP has 24 seats in parliament, whose support is critical for the survival of the Trudeau government. The Canadian Prime Minister therefore cannot afford to antagonise Singh.

Reportedly, the local authorities have closed down a Chinese restaurant, a supermarket and a marine products company. Though done with good intent in mind, the decision is likely to erode the iron-cast friendship between Islamabad and Beijing. On the other hand it could also be a signal to the West.