Puducherry CM V Narayanasamy gifts onions on Sonia Gandhi's birthday

Puducherry CM protested the Central government's failure to control the price of onion

The escalating prices of onion have been making headlines everyday. On Monday, as the Congress celebrated the birthday of its longest-serving president, Sonia Gandhi, a party leader and Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy chose the occasion to protest the Central government’s failure to control the price of the staple. He criticised the Centre’s alleged inaction before a gathering of his colleagues while gifting packs of onion to women workers of the party. He got a helping hand from his party colleague A Namassivayam. Besides other colleagues, many people who passed that way also received half-kg packs of onions.

Another ‘reunion’? Not yet!

Rumours of a patch-up between Samajwadi Party (SP) President Akhilesh Yadav (pictured) and his estranged uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav never seem to die. They surfaced again after the reconciliation between the Nationalist Congress Party’s Sharad Pawar and his nephew Ajit Pawar. Talks of a possible coming together of the two factions of the Yadav family grew louder during the recent birthday celebrations of party founder and clan patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, with Shivpal, who went out and formed his own outfit, the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party, giving signals of a rapprochement to some of his erstwhile colleagues. The rumours caused great nervousness among a section of SP leaders, given the kind of grip Shivpal had on the party once. But it seems Akhilesh has not warmed up to the “reunion” idea as yet and has supposedly told SP members that the party would fight all polls on its own.

‘Boris ko humein jitana hai’

The poll mood in the United Kingdom took a desi turn on Monday as a video emerged, featuring a Hindi song “Boris ko humein jitana hai, is desh ko aaj bachana hai… (we have to ensure Boris’ victory to save this country)”, projecting Prime Minister Boris Johnson as a panacea for all the problems. The song, in chaste Hindi, is believed to be the handiwork of some groups among the 1.5-million-strong Indian diaspora. The visuals, as one would expect, consist mostly of montages of Johnson, interspersed briefly by the picture of opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, whom it calls a “liar”. Whether the video will help woo the Indian diaspora is an open question, but the desi audience on Twitter is hailing it purely for its entertainment value.