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Statement by the Minister of Chemicals & fertilizers DV Sadananda Gowda in the Parliament that the Union government has no plans to make the Uniform Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCPMP) mandatory is very disappointing. He said this in reply to a question by K. Muraleedharan, Congress MP from Kerala in the Lok Sabha. His reply caused utter disgust as the matter concerns the health of the people.

Will the two young leaders of Bihar, Tejaswi Yadav of the Rashtirya Janata Dal and Chiraq Pawan of the Lok Jan Shakthi Party be able to fill the big shoes of their fathers Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan respectively? Lalu and Paswan had been players in Bihar politics for decades and held their own despite their ups and downs. They sensed a political opening in the late eighties to challenge the dominant Congress and succeeded to a certain extent. While Lalu is in a Ranchi jail, serving sentence on the fodder scam, Paswan has passed away last week.

BOLIVIA is on the verge of a bloodbath, after details emerged of another plan by right-wing forces to derail next week’s presidential and parliamentary elections. The elections are scheduled on October 18 and the MAS candidate supported by the deposed President Evo Morales is the possible winner.

Fifteen years back, the Right To Information (RTI) Act became operational on October 12, 2005. It was the auspicious day of Vijayadashmi. It appeared to herald a new evolution in Indian democracy. Citizens who had been advocating this law saw an opportunity of converting India’s defective elective democracy into a true participatory democracy that will give citizens true freedom.

This year’s Nobel prize for economics has been awarded to two academics who have made a great deal of difference to sale of publicly owned resources. If the precepts and formats suggested by the economists are genuinely followed, then many of the political controversies in this country could be avoided.

New Delhi: National Hockey Team defender Surender Kumar was among the six players who had tested Positive for the Covid-19 virus, has recovered well and is back on the pitch "where he belongs."

The employment market in India after nearly seven months of varied phases of lock down and the surge in covid pandemic, is showing conflicting signs. Labour market statistics improved somewhat in September 2020. The unemployment rate fell sharply from 8.4 per cent in August to 6.7 per cent. In September 2020.The opening of the economy in truncated form, led to the n return of many workers and employees to the establishments which were closed for long or worked partially. This is the lowest unemployment rate in 18 months. More importantly, the employment rate scaled up to almost 38 per cent from 37.5 per cent in August. This is its highest level since the lockdown. It has more than recovered from its small fall last month. These are big and welcome gains, says the latest study of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

Probably this is for the first time in the history of Independent India a chief minister of a state has cast aspersion on the sitting justice of the Supreme Court N V Ramana and lodged a complaint against him of conspiring against his government.

It is good to note that the country’s Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection is back on the growth track, first time since March. The gradual normalisation of economic activities and moving out of the lockdown restrictions and changing the definition of containment zones from curbs on a whole locality or a housing complex to only a particular house where Covid-19 is reported are mainly responsible for the economic recovery. This helped improve the government’s consumption tax collection.

It’s hard for anyone reading any reactionary publication to avoid the name George Soros. Many right-wingers claim that Soros, a billionaire Jewish businessman, is funding radical leftists. They claim that Soros pays Black Lives Matter protesters, and some say he helps coordinate leftist activities around the world. Of course, anyone who does the slightest bit of research can easily discover that these accusations are not true. Despite this, millions of Americans believe these lies and repeat them regularly. Why is this, and why is it so easy to convince so many people of something that is obviously not true? The answer is that this lie plays into the long history of the fusing of anti-communism with anti-Semitism that is ingrained in much of American right-wing thought.