As the BJP IT cell continues to remind us of India’s glorious past, and the Congress’ continues to stroll in three hours too late with a cold “take”, the AAP IT cell has finally made an appearance — as that wedding uncle that no one can resist laughing along with.

Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray condemned the JNU violence and stood up for a Mumbai protester, after confessing that Shiv Sena shouldn’t have mixed religion and politics. Are we seeing the birth of a “liberal” Sena? We suggest you sit back and enjoy the U-turn... only so long as it is politically expedient.

From Gateway of India in Colaba, to Carter Road in Bandra, tens of thousands of Mumbaikars put their Mondays on hold to protest the violence that took place on JNU campus Sunday night. The message from Mumbai is clear: “We stand with JNU”.

I’m a student of Delhi University and I’ve witnessed the growing aggression of ABVP. They’ve heckled students gathered at Ramjas College to attend a talk by JNU scholar Umar Khalid and harassed women from the Pinjra Tod movement campaigning against patriarchal hostel rules.

Amid raging wildfires, Australia’s PM Scott Morrison visited the town of Cobargo for a photo-op. Instead of a greetings, he got broadsided by a volley of insults and snubs, with residents heckling the climate-change-denying PM so hard that he had to leave.

This Republic Day, the tableaux of West Bengal, Kerala, and Maharashtra have been rejected by the Centre. At first, this snub could be seen as an innocent move. That is, until you realise that there might be a reason these three states have been left out – they’ve managed to upset the ruling party in one way or the other.

Will the India of 2020 keep detaining protesters? Will the India of 2020 muffle dissenting voices? Will the India of 2020 be outraging over a yogi or a sadhvi, instead of marvelling at its achievements in science and technology? And will you, Mr Modi, focus on petty politics instead of economic growth and development?

While anger and resistance have been the customary motif during these past few weeks of the nation-wide anti-CAA-NRC protests, what has remained common in everyone’s articulation of their personal protest has been the presence of poetry. Whenever in history, oppression has become social syntax, poetry has become resistance.

Chandrashekhar Azad’s now viral photograph, holding the Constitution on the steps of Delhi’s Jama Masjid, screams resistance and unity. His Bhim Army prides itself on the Constitution, a document that is secular and impartial to any one religion, caste, or sect. No wonder the increasingly distressed Indian Muslims now see an ally and perhaps even a leader in Azad.

Before arriving at the Mumbai protests, there were apprehensions that dissenters would be detained on the spot, as was the case in other cities. But very few expected that the city would choose this day to prove that it still has some of that fabled “spirit” left in it.

I’m tired of the hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing over those Mumbaikars who don’t show up to protest. Instead, I want to talk about those who did. The young woman in her 20s who appointed herself the protector of the scared teen protester, the blue-haired girl who booed away the Congress rep who tried to use the gathering as a ground for campaigning.

India’s students are leading a movement against the discriminatory Citizenship Act. Right now we need a powerful leader from the Opposition who can back our angry youth and lead the way. But yet again, our Opposition fails us – and abandons its role as a watchdog of our democracy.

At a Jharkhand rally Rahul Gandhi stated that “Make in India” should actually be called “Rape in India”, a reference to the dozens of gruesome rape headlines we’re seeing every hour at this point. While neither the most trenchant critique of the government, nor the wisest, it’s played right into the hands of the establishment.

The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019, proposes to accord citizenship to illegal Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jains, Parsis, and Christian migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. By extension, it keeps out Muslims. But the Northeast does not want “outsiders”, irrespective of what religion they belong to.

Pulling up out-of-context facts to arrive at completely random conclusions seems to be a trend among our netas. Backing the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, Amit Shah said the Congress had divided the country on religious lines (TL;DR: they didn’t). And our Environment Minister claimed that pollution does not affect lifespans.

The target of this week’s need for some comic relief is none other than Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who forgot for a second that she was supposed to be in charge of the Indian economy, and instead revealed her disgust for onions.

Does the new alliance in Maharashtra mean — as a few of us would like to believe — that the Shiv Sena has given up on Hindutva ideology and is now a secular party? Or does this mean that the Congress and NCP have now agreed that the only way to win an election is to pretend to be on the same side as the BJP and Shiv Sena?

By tonight, the floor test in the State Assembly may finally provide Maharashtra with a CM, over a month after elections. But voters are unlikely to be pleased, considering they’ll have to live with some combination of parties they didn’t vote for (and in some cases actively campaigned against).

Nehru’s 130th birth anniversary marks the rare occasion where he isn’t being criticised by rivals of the Congress party. The last few years have seen Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru become the right wing’s favourite punching bag.

It’s only the third time in Maharashtra’s history that President’s Rule has been imposed, and like the previous two times, Sharad Pawar is at the centre of the action. For the experienced campaigner looking for his next big victory, could the third time be lucky?

In an interview from 1999, which had gone viral earlier this week, Bal Thackeray said he would never join hands with Sharad Pawar. Getting the CM’s post then would be a short-term victory for Uddhav, but if the Shiv Sena is perceived as having turned its back on Bal Thackeray’s legacy, the win could be a self-defeating one.

Looking for a show to binge-watch but can’t decide? The Maharashtra political crisis has everything you need.

2019 has been an interesting year for Dushyant Chautala, from losing his Lok Sabha seat to a BJP candidate in May to winding up in a position to see BJP’s government in Haryana unseated in October.

Amid last-minute campaigning for Maharashtra, the promise of “one crore jobs and better healthcare”, is lost in the noise created by the latest political debate: Should Savarkar be conferred the Bharat Ratna? This new “burning question” has everyone from Arnab Goswami to WhatsApp uncles offering opinions.

#GoBackModi has been trending every time the Prime Minister visits Tamil Nadu, or even so much as thinks about curd rice. This weekend, however, the BJP seemed to have had enough of this pesky hashtag.

If there was one person in the country whom you’d expect to be paying attention to all the “maths” regarding India’s economy, it would have been Commerce and Industry minister Piyush Goyal. Apparently, the best way to deal with a slowing economy is to completely stop acknowledging all statistics and percentages related to it altogether.

Seven men – including a BJP youth leader – arrested for inciting violence that led to the murder of a police inspector in Bulandshahr last December, were welcomed with garlands after they were released on bail. We’ve had criminal netas for as long as we can remember, but what has changed now?