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C AMBRIDGE DICTIONARY'S word of the year is manifest, which it tells us is: “to use methods such as visualisation and affirmation to help you imagine achieving something you want, in the belief that doing so will make it more likely to happen.” The meaning should make it self-evident the delusion of the exercise. Cambridge chose to crown it because on its website, manifest was looked up 130,000 times.

THAT NATIONS RISE and fall over the course of history is well known. That they can do so in the short course of the present is less appreciated. The tiny country of Guyana, long famous for its cricket and Indian diaspora, is today the richest country on South America's mainland in terms of per capita income. What is remarkable is that two decades ago, at the turn of the century, Guyana was among the poorest countries on the continent. Unsurprisingly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has chosen to stop over in South America's biggest recent success story en route to Delhi from the G20 in Rio.

THE WORD ‘POOR' refers to people across castes, communities and religions in Indian society. Marxism has the concept of ‘class'. For government, ‘poor' means an economic category determined by the poverty line developed by experts in consultation with the administration. According to a World Bank report, around 129 million people are living in extreme poverty in India as of 2024. There has been an impressive decline in poverty in India when compared with 1990 when the number of poor was 431 million. The government is trying to make India poverty-free with the help of various poverty eradication measures and social welfare programmes. Even then, it needs more perceptive efforts to achieve the objective of Viksit Bharat by 2047.

HAVING RUN OUT of excuses, and with no one to blame for the capital's killer air, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi now wants to undertake a costly experiment: cloud seeding. Even if it were to get the go-ahead from the relevant authorities, particularly courts, its efficacy in fighting pollution remains highly suspect. But that may not be AAP's problem. For all that seems to matter is whether the attempt to make artificial rain allows it to hoodwink people into believing that it is doing something to mitigate the misery from the toxic pollution. If it had really cared, it wouldn't have come up with such chancy diversions just when the capital is enveloped in a thick shroud of toxic pollution, with the young and old breathing poisonous air through sniffling noses and coughing throats. And it wouldn't have to shut down schools and impose restrictions on vehicular traffic. Such Band-Aid solutions in the last 10 years of AAP, without Arvind Kejriwal finding a tenable way in concert with all other relevant authorities to handle what is actually now a round-the-year menace that Delhiites are obliged to put up with, are in fact his modus operandi. Doing precious little but shouting from housetops of wonders wrought. Unfortunately for Kejriwal, unlike the vastly exaggerated claims about health and education, which on close examination by domain experts have been found to be mostly untrue, he cannot claim success in reducing the pollution levels because these are measured daily by independent agencies in a well-established scientific process. Average AQI levels in the last 10 years have steadily gone up, despite better awareness about bad air and ways to check it. If Kejriwal feels helpless, it is only because the scientific measure of pollution prevents him from claiming the air in Delhi to be the cleanest for any city in the country. Regardless, he still manages to cash in on the annual suffering of Delhiites, hiring hundreds of young men on handsome per diem who stand at traffic lights brandishing engine on-off signs. They, in turn, serve as AAP workers at election time. Such cunning has diminished Kejriwal's appeal, his survival depending on a segment of voters still dazzled by ‘free bijli-paani'.

NCP chief Ajit ‘Dada' Pawar's comments about a meeting at industrialist Gautam Adani's Delhi residence in 2019 continues to make ripples. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Dada's claim that Adani was present at a discussion between BJP and NCP leaders, including his uncle Sharad Pawar—Ajit as well as Pawar Sr later clarified that Adani was not himself present—has not damaged the ruling alliance much. While the Uddhav Sena and Congress accused BJP of colluding with industrialists to bring down the MVA government, the episode has raised several questions about Sharad Pawar's involvement or preparedness in doing business with BJP. The Maratha veteran said he has known Adani for long and did not deny being part of the discussion. Though the reference to the industrialist created a stir, most of Dada's story is not new. In a lengthy speech to his legislators after he joined hands with BJP last year, Ajit had detailed more than one contact between BJP and NCP. In an interview, he said he and other senior leaders like Praful Patel were instructed to negotiate with BJP “over phone” but the plan did not work as the interlocutors pointed out that talks on government formation do not take place over mobiles. Dada said NCP had called for the exclusion of the then undivided Shiv Sena but BJP had refused, saying the Sena was an old ally. BJP offered a tripartite arrangement along the lines that currently exist and its position on the Sena stands in contrast to the latter's decision to ally with Congress and NCP in 2019. All in all, Dada's interview and subsequent comments of the likes of Sharad Pawar and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis reveal the absurdities as well as twists and turns in Maharashtra politics. None of the main players can claim the moral high ground as the events really test the adage that politics is the art of the possible.

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