Why Kerala Rejected Communist Rule After a Decade
NB, News Briefings, May 2026, Featured Commentary Mariya Rajan NB, News Briefings, May 2026, Featured Commentary Mariya Rajan

Why Kerala Rejected Communist Rule After a Decade

The Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) has won 102 seats in Kerala’s 140-member Assembly, ending 10 years of Left Democratic Front (LDF) government. The defeat of the LDF also means that no communist party now leads a state government anywhere in India. In Kerala itself, the scale of the result suggests that something more than a usual swing between two evenly matched alliances was underway.

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Bengaluru Cannot Drain an Evening’s Rain and Still Calls Itself a World City
NB, News Briefings, April 2026 Mariya Rajan NB, News Briefings, April 2026 Mariya Rajan

Bengaluru Cannot Drain an Evening’s Rain and Still Calls Itself a World City

Bengaluru is no longer the Bengaluru many of us remember, or the one we still speak of with nostalgia. This was once the city people came to for its weather, its trees and lakes, and an easier pace of life. Today, summer feels harsher, water has become uncertain, and ordinary life has become more expensive and more exhausting.

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