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Showing posts from April, 2025

How and Why did Zohran Mamdani win?

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On 1st July, the results of the New York City Mayoral Democratic Party Primary were out. Whoever wins the democratic primary is likely to be the mayor of NYC. Zohran Mamdani has won the Democratic Party Primary. The City follows a ranked choice system where votes are transferred to a higher candidate until someone achieves at least 50% of the vote. Mamdani was leading in the first round before the transfer of votes. He defeated the long-time veteran of New York Politics, Andrew Cuomo, 56-44 in the second round. Hence, now Mamdani will head towards the final New York Mayoral election in November.  This article is not about him, his ideology or whether that will help New York City; rather, it is about how he managed to win the election and what both parties of the USA, as well as any political enthusiast, can learn from that.  Founded by the Dutch in 1624, New York City is the largest city in the USA and is the heart of Wall Street, the symbol of free market capitalism...

Free-Trade is (not) just about economics

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The Trump Administration's new tariff policy has been in discussion for some time now. Starting from his campaign season, he has been harshly talking about imposing reciprocal tariffs with the US's major trading partners. Well, everything that Trump has been talking about tariffs only since last year, right? Not so. Trump made tariffs a central policy even in his 2016 election campaign, and the US entered a trade war with China, which lasted even during the Biden Administration. To our shock, Biden didn't remove most of the tariffs that were imposed by the Trump administration. In addition, Biden continued to keep them as well as continue to impose tariffs on aluminium, steel and 200% on Chinese EVs. Now, you can see there is a small affinity for tariffs not only in the US but around the world.  Let us not deny the fact that we are all beneficiaries of free trade. We are taught pure economics in school but not international political economy. Hence, our understanding of eco...

News Capsule For The Month of March 2025

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  Following are the top news for the month.   If you wish to follow and get notifications of future articles, you can sign up using the email on the left sidebar.  Article of the month Kerala  Kerala state budget presented in the state assembly.  CPIM's state meeting ends in Kollam with a strict change of ideology.  An elephant goes on a rampage in a temple festival.  CASA says it will enter electoral politics in Kerala.  Six were arrested in an Aluva drug bust. Kochi Metro has yet to fix the Kaloor Stadium glitch. A Kerala cop was caught red-handed while taking a bribe for passport verification.  Rites Ltd emerges as the sole bidder for Phase III Kochi metro line.  Director of Empuraan film 📽 Prithviraj says he'll be making 17 voluntary edits to the film after the backlash.  BJP has nominated former minister and technocrat Rajeev Chandrashekhar for the post of State President ahead of local elections this year and State elect...