It’s true that the economic bequest to the AAP government was not good. The state’s outstanding debt was Rs 2.85 lakh crore on March 31, 2022. Since then, this government has wasted its historic mandate, made mistakes, not by accident but out of political compulsion, writes Ajay Vir Jakhar, Chairperson, Bharat Krishak Samaj, in his Edit article Punjab must face inconvenient truths. Leave apart debt repayment, Punjab spends more on interest payments (Rs 28,775 crore) than it does on education and health combined. Controlling a state’s budget will alienate powerful organised blocs like government staff and farmers, he avers. The task will require a rare political commodity: a statesman with the sheer capacity to absorb public hatred. For Punjab to reverse the trajectory of decline, whoever wins the 2027 election, will need the cooperation of the Union Government — otherwise, the state will sink further into a disaster of its own making, he writes.In 1993, Punjab ranked third among Indian states in per capita income. Today, at least 15 states have overtaken it. A government that cannot fund a school or a road on its own income is not governing a state; it is managing a slow bankruptcy with a smile, say BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla & Geojuristoday Research Foundation director Rudraksh Aneja in the Op-Ed article Warning bells for Punjab’s future. The bulk of the state’s revenue receipts is consumed by salaries, pensions, interest and subsidies. There is little left to build anything.Punjab’s most serious challenge today is the absence of a shared political vision, writes former Punjab Parliamentary Affairs Minister Brahm Mohindra in his Op-Ed article Punjab needs vision beyond politics. It needs all its political leaders to together draft a common charter. We need to focus on finding answers to questions like:  What should be Punjab’s new economic model that can reduce the state’s debt burden? What industries should be prioritised? How can quality jobs be created on a meaningful scale? How can the state retain its youth and get it to participate both in politics and governance?The Akal Takht Jathedar summoned members of the elected legislature to the Amritsar durbar and asked them to explain why they had passed the Jaagat Jot Sri Guru Granth Sahib Satkar (Amendment) Act. The AAP is damned if it implements the Akal Takht Jathedar’s list of amendments and damned if it does not, writes senior journalist Nirmal Sandhu in his Op-Ed article Politics takes a religious turn.  Sukhbir Badal controls the SGPC that picks and drops Akal Takht Jathedars at will without following any due process. His calculated strategy was to put Mann on the spot. And he has succeeded, he writes. Had the Chief Minister taken the SGPC on board and not gone to town congratulating himself for the achievement, his zealous opponents might not have taken so unkindly to it, he thinks.The statement that the passport was only a travel document and not a proof of citizenship, conveyed a legal truth but left a public bruise. It is evident that voter deletion unplugs the citizen from the State, writes Supreme Court senior advocate Sanjay Hegde in his Edit piece The kill switch of citizenship. The real machinery is not in the passport office. It is in the electoral rolls. We have already seen it work in West Bengal. The Special Intensive Revision struck off 63 lakh names from the rolls, then they will be wiped out from ration cards, then the non-renewal of passport — so the deletion is the kill switch of citizenship. A citizen’s name on the rolls ought not to be struck off on proof demanded from him, but only on proof brought against him.The videos showing caretakers at a Bengaluru daycare centre shocked the nation. We are talking about allegations of systematic cruelty against toddlers — children allegedly locked inside bathrooms, placed inside washing machines, sprayed with toilet jets because they cried. When something like this happens, it doesn’t merely traumatise parents. It sends a chilling message to thousands of women contemplating a return to work: perhaps it simply isn’t worth the risk, writes author Meghna Pant in her Op-Ed article A daycare crisis, a workforce crisis. It’s no longer just about one daycare. It is about whether modern India truly supports working families. Women’s empowerment does not begin in the boardroom. Sometimes, it begins in the daycare facility, she writes.Israel has a tough conscription policy under which every 18-year-old must devote 32 months to military service. Kasol in Kullu’s Parvati valley, which is a hotspot for Israeli rave parties, was recently in news when a court order was passed against senior police officers for negligence in controlling the ravages of Kasol’s rave culture. The place plays its therapeutic role after their conscription with the help of DJs, loud electronic music, strobe lights, alcohol and drugs. If an imaginary invoice is sent to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he might appreciate that Kasol therapy restores his youth’s capacity to be recalled for battle, writes former NCERT director Krishna Kumar in his Edit piece An invoice for Netanyahu.Having successfully weathered an unprecedented energy crisis, India should quickly take advantage of softer energy prices and plentiful supplies to rebuild its strategic petroleum reserves and start working on similar reserves for LNG. Diversification of oil supplies is an essential hedge for a heavily import-dependent country like India, but it doesn’t trump the reality that the Gulf is Delhi’s most proximate source of oil & gas, writes former Ambassador to Egypt and UAE Navdeep Suri in his Edit piece Gulf anchors India’s energy security. The UAE’s decision to quit the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) amid the crisis was an indication that it planned to raise its crude oil output from 3.2 million to almost 5 million barrels per day over the next year or so. It could end up supplying a larger share to the Indian market in the coming years, he writes.