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Arya Rajendran is trending after NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani mentioned her in a now-viral old post.

When Zohran Mamdani, the son of filmmaker Mira Nair, won the Democratic primary in the race to become New York City’s next mayor, one of his old posts resurfaced online. In a 2020 post on X (then Twitter), Mamdani referred to Arya Rajendran, a young Indian politician from Kerala, as the kind of leader New York might need.

But who is Arya Rajendran? And why did Mamdani choose to spotlight her?

Back in December 2020, Zohran Mamdani shared a post originally published by CPI(M) Puducherry, highlighting Arya Rajendran’s historic election as Mayor of Thiruvananthapuram at just 21.

The post read, “Comrade Arya Rajendran, age 21 new Mayor of Thiruvananthapuram , Kerala. She will be the youngest mayor of a major city in the world.”

Mamdani amplified the message, writing, “So what kind of mayor does NYC need right now?” – suggesting a bold, youthful and ideologically committed leader like Rajendran could be the answer.As Zohran Mamdani prepares for the final leg of the mayoral race in November, his old post is gaining renewed attention.

Once the FTA is signed, it will require approval from the British Parliament and India’s Cabinet before it can take effect.

The process of legal scrubbing of the India-UK free trade agreement (FTA) text is progressing at a faster pace, and the pact is expected to be signed by the end of July, an official said on Tuesday. To give impetus to the process, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal is in London with his official team.

Barthwal will meet UK Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds and other British senior officials during his two-day visit.

The two countries announced the conclusion of the negotiations on May 6. It will remove taxes on the export of labour-intensive products such as leather, footwear and clothing, while making imports of whisky and cars from Britain cheaper, in a bid to double trade between the two economies to USD 120 billion by 2030.

The world’s fifth and sixth-largest economies concluded the deal after three years of on-off negotiations.

Once the FTA is signed, it will require approval from the British Parliament and India’s Cabinet before it can take effect. The implementation is likely to take about a year after the signing.

The agreement is likely to be signed by July end. India’s legal team is also there in London for the legal scrubbing of the text. The pact’s text would be put in the public domain after signing,” the official said, adding the commerce secretary’s visit is important, as issues such as the implementation process of the pact would be discussed.

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal was also in London earlier this month. He held discussions with Reynolds on issues related to the implementation of the FTA.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invited UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to India.

An all-out Naval attack would have marked a significant escalation in the military hostilities during Op Sindoor.The Indian Navy fleet had been assigned their target packages, and were put on hot-standby to launch land-attack missiles at targets inside Pakistan on more than one occasion during Operation Sindoor.

The final orders to fire ultimately never came with sources telling NDTV, “the Navy stopped short of launching an attack on identified targets. This included Pakistan Navy ships and submarines in harbour and land-based targets.” An all-out Naval attack would have marked a significant escalation in the military hostilities during Op Sindoor.

Targets inside Pakistan, including Pak Navy ships at Karachi harbour, would have been attacked with BrahMos missiles and submarine-fired land-attack cruise missiles, believed to be of the Klub series, which are integrated with India’s Russian built ‘Kilo’ Class submarines. “Both warships and submarines were in position to launch anti-ship and land attack missiles.”

Throughout the military hostilities between India and Pakistan, the Pakistani Navy’s frontline assets including frigates and corvettes stayed bottled-up within harbour and did not venture out. NDTV has learnt that many of these warships could have been sunk at port if the order to fire had come to the Navy.

On Wednesday, Queens native and Grammy-winning rapper 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis James Jackson III, posted a clip of Mr Mamdani outlining his tax plan.Rapper 50 Cent has taken aim at Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York mayor polls, over his proposed tax policies, offering the candidate a “first class one-way ticket” out of the city.

Mr Mamdani, an assemblyman from Queens and self-described democratic socialist, won in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, defeating former Governor Andrew Cuomo. His poll pitch focuses on making life more affordable for working-class New Yorkers, with promises to freeze rent on stabilised units, provide free public buses, and set up city-owned grocery stores. To fund these, he plans to raise taxes on the city’s richest residents and big corporations.

On Wednesday, Queens native and Grammy-winning rapper 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis James Jackson III, posted a clip of Mr Mamdani outlining his tax plan.

“Where did he come from? Whose friend is this? I’m not feeling this plan. No. I will give him $258,750 (over Rs 2.2 crore) and a first class one-way ticket away from NY,” the rapper wrote on Instagram.

Unidentified bike-borne persons opened fire when the woman was inside the car.The mother of jailed gangster Jaggu Bhagwanpuria and another person accompanying her died after being shot at by unidentified bike-borne people in Punjab’s Batala, police said on Friday.

Harjit Kaur was critically injured after the incident around 9:30 pm on Thursday and was referred to a hospital in Amritsar, but she succumbed to the bullet injuries, a senior police official from Batala said over the phone.

The incident took place on Qadian road which falls under the Civil Lines area.

“Unidentified bike-borne persons opened fire when Harjit Kaur and another person Karanvir Singh were in the car,” Deputy Superintendent of Police, Batala, Paramveer Singh said.

The DSP said Karanvir was declared dead at the Batala Civil hospital. The attackers fled from the spot and efforts are on to nab them, he added.

The DSP said a case has been registered and teams have been formed to nab the killers. “We are investigating the motive behind the incident,” he said.

News of the exit has circulated internally among some employees in recent days, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing internal information. Afshar’s name no longer appeared to show up in an internal directory, two of the people said. The reason for the change and his future plans weren’t immediately clear.

Some of the directors who reported to Afshar now report to Tom Zhu, Tesla’s senior vice president of automotive, according to some of the people. The Chinese-born executive oversees Tesla’s factory in Shanghai and is one of the company’s three named executive officers.

Afshar, who has worked in the office of the CEO, was promoted last year to oversee sales and manufacturing operations in North America and Europe. Those markets have become particular pain points for the automaker recently, with sales plunging due to rising competition and a consumer backlash to Musk’s role in US President Donald Trump’s administration.

This marks the latest departure of a prominent Tesla leader in recent weeks. Milan Kovac, the head of engineering for the company’s Optimus humanoid robot program, stepped down citing a desire to spend more time with his family.

Jenna Ferrua, who is listed on LinkedIn as a human resources director for North America, has also left Tesla and no longer appears to be in the company directory, according to people familiar.

The personnel changes punctuate a tumultuous year for Tesla, whose shares have tumbled about 19% while demand has waned for its EV models and Musk has spent time in Washington. The chief executive officer is trying to reorient the company around artificial intelligence, robots and driverless cars, recently rolling out a small number of Tesla’s long-promised robotaxis in Austin.

Tesla is expected to report global delivery results for the second quarter next week.

Its shares briefly turned negative after Bloomberg reported Afshar’s departure, and were little changed as of 1:57 p.m. in New York.

Afshar joined Tesla in 2017, according to his LinkedIn profile, as the carmaker was beginning to ramp up production of the Model 3 sedan.

“I was with Elon nearly every single day during Model 3 hell,” he said in a 2024 post on X, the social media platform that Musk owns. “This included Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, his birthday and nearly missing his brother’s wedding.”

Afshar was posting regularly on social media in recent days, including several messages this week praising the robotaxi launch.

The executive oversaw the construction of Tesla’s plant in Austin. A member of the office of the CEO since 2017, his most recent job title was listed on his LinkedIn page as a cowboy hat emoji. 

He came under internal scrutiny in 2022 for his role in purchasing hard-to-get construction materials, including a special kind of glass, Bloomberg reported.

It’s not unusual for executives to shuffle from one part of Musk’s empire to another, and Afshar worked at SpaceX for a time.

Tesla has just three named executive officers: Musk, Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja and Zhu.

With the BMC elections approaching, this move is being seen as more than just the estranged cousins coming together for a cultural protest, but also a strategic move ahead of the polls.

Raj Thackeray, founder of the MNS, had originally announced a protest for July 6. The date clashed with Ashadhi Ekadashi, a day of religious significance in Maharashtra. Raj Thackeray revised the date to July 5. 

“With warm regards, Jai Maharashtra. This morning, for our Marathi language, for Maharashtra, and for the Marathi people, a morcha was announced on July 6. There is a slight change in that plan; the morcha will now take place on Saturday, July 5, at 10 AM from Girgaum to Azad Maidan. The location and all other details remain unchanged. Therefore, the media and the people of Maharashtra should take note of this change,” Raj Thackeray stated in a social media post. 

Separately, Uddhav Thackeray had backed a July 7 march initiated by the Tribhasha Sutra (Three language formula) Anti-Mumbai Coordination Committee.”We will not allow the imposition of Hindi as a third language in Marathi and English schools for Classes 1 to 5 in Maharashtra. This is not just an educational issue; it is cultural encroachment.”

Uddhav Thackeray also questioned the constitutional basis and political motivation behind the policy, invoking comments made by BJP national president JP Nadda and calling for scrutiny of the state’s education system. Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar echoed similar views recently.

“My view is that Hindi should not be made compulsory in primary education. There is no issue with children learning Hindi after Class 5. But we must analyse how many languages a child of a certain age can realistically learn and what linguistic burden that places on them,” Mr Pawar said.

raised concerns over what he described as an overwhelming focus on routine and procedural tasks.

“More than 80 per cent of our work is related to attending generic meetings where all other departments are present, handling human resource issues, attending litigation matters, dealing with transparency and right to information laws, sending replies to news clippings, responding to mundane correspondence, and compiling all sorts of reports,” Mr Sharma wrote in a lengthy LinkedIn post.

Mr Sharma, who recently took charge as Principal Secretary of the Energy Department in the Rajasthan government, used his new role as a moment to reflect and challenge the status quo within the bureaucracy.

In his post, Mr Sharma also questioned a long-standing belief in administrative circles, that all assignments within the IAS are equally challenging.

“I have never been able to convince myself of the thought that all assignments are of the same difficulty level,” he wrote. “This narrative perhaps arises from the conceived generic nature of the administrative services we are part of.”

He argued that this mindset has led to a loss of focus on department-specific goals, with officers often caught in an endless loop of administrative formalities that offer little sectoral insight

“These common-to-all-department tasks are important though. But they leave you with little time for the Core Work,” he added. “Handling the Core Work of the department successfully is a real challenge and a true contribution to the organisation and society.”

He warned that a persistent neglect of core departmental functions can not only stall innovation but also create a “false sense of being an expert administrator,” ultimately harming service delivery in the long term.

As he steps into his role in the Energy Department, his resolution is to reverse the current pattern and dedicate 80 per cent of his time to core work.

Even today, in the digital age, radio remains a vital survival tool during wars, disasters, and blackouts, proving its enduring role in communication, resilience, and public unity across generations and geographies.

 when internet and mobile networks fail, as seen in Spain and Portugal’s 2024 blackout or during the Russia-Ukraine war, radio remains functional. In Ukraine, when TV towers were destroyed and signals jammed, citizens turned to crank radios to access life-saving updates and coded escape routes. Similarly, Palestinians in Gaza have relied on radio for news amid telecommunications blackouts.

Experts say radio’s dependability lies in its simplicity. It doesn’t rely on expensive devices, data plans, or fragile digital infrastructure. Emergency radios powered by cranks or solar energy can continue broadcasting even when electricity is down.

Governments, including the EU, now urge citizens to include battery-powered or wind-up radios in emergency kits alongside food, water, and medicine, as per the article.

Radio waves, a type of light, are created by accelerating electrons in an electric circuit. By altering their amplitude (AM) or frequency (FM), these waves carry information. A radio receiver decodes the waves into sound. Shortwave radio, useful for long distances, remains vital for aircraft and rescue operations. Its evolution owes much to physicist Edward Appleton, who proved the ionosphere’s role in bouncing signals.

Preamble Was Altered During Emergency, ‘Secular’ and ‘Socialist’ Added: Hosabal

Dattatreya Hosabale, the general secretary of the BJP’s ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, today said the fate of two words in the preamble of the constitution – “Socialist” and “Secular” — should be decided through debate.

“During Emergency, two words Secular and Socialist were added to the Constitution, which were not part of the original Preamble,” Mr Hosabale said at an event organised on 50 years of the Emergency.

“Later, these words were not removed. Should they remain or not, debate must happen on this. These two words were not in Dr Ambedkar’s Constitution. During Emergency, the country had no functioning Parliament, no rights, no judiciary and yet these two words were added.” 

On the occasion, he also took a jibe at the Congress, and without naming him, its senior leader Rahul Gandhi.

“The people who did this (imposed Emergency) are roaming around with copies of the Constitution today. They have, to date, not apologised to the people of India for this,” he said.

“You put more than 1 lakh people in jail, kept more than 250 journalists in jail, violated fundamental rights, and forced 60 lakh Indians to undergo sterilisation… You ended the independence of judiciary. Have all the people who did this apologised to the country? If it was not you but your ancestors, then you have to apologise in their name,” he added. 

The BJP’s move to name the 50th anniversary of Emergency —  – imposed by the government of the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975  — as the “Samvidhan Hatya Divas (Murder of Constitution Day)”, has opened a new front with the Congress.

The two parties have been again at loggerheads since yesterday, with leaders from JP Nadda to Union home minister Amit Shah ripping into the Congress.  

The Congress has responded sharply in face of the concerted BJP attack .

“Those who never contributed to the freedom struggle or constitution-making are now claiming to defend it,” said party chief Mallikarjun Kharge.