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Majority of Indian kitchens do not have access to clean cooking energy. We have been worst in the world, and are still so. There are many programmes to trumpet, but government fails to provide a full clean energy security cover to over half of the population. In 2015, the population without access to clean cooking was 85.3 crore, over 27 crore from China. We have been successful in giving access to only a few crore people since then. Obviously, the speed is not enough, requiring an intensive set of actions and policies lowering costs and ease of having energy in times of need.

India, after winning a series of diplomatic battles against Pakistan, now needs to gradually lift the lockdown imposed on the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. So far the diplomatic success scored by India has been to foil Pakistan’s attempt to internationalise the issue and bring in third party intervention. New Delhi did succeed in its attempts. The only concern voiced by the international community was the lockdown imposed and the possible human rights violation once the siege is lifted. The Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has voiced this in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and accused New Delhi of oppressing the people of J&K.

Majority of industry associations, entrepreneurs and trade analysts rang alarm bell for India in joining RCEP – a new and the largest trade block consisting of ASEAN -10 and 6 countries. Before, India had several FTAs. But, none of them yielded any trade benefit. Instead, they widened trade deficit. This provided cascading impact on balance of payment.

Weekly Round-Up of Major Decisions of the Courts in India as also Legal Policy Developments

On 3rd October, 2019, the newly elevated Justice Ravindra Bhat became the fifth judge in the Supreme Court to recuse himself from hearing the appeal by Gautam Navlakha, a human rights activist, who has been implicated in the Bhima Koregaon case. Before Justice Bhat, Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, and three other judges, including Justice N.V. Ramanna, Justice B. R. Gavai and Justice R. Subhash Reddy had recused from the case, without citing any reasons. It’s an irony that a Supreme Court functioning to its fullest capacity after long, i.e., 34 judges, but no judge wanting to hear a matter of grave threats to personal liberty of a citizen. This brings us to the question of the law on judicial recusal, as part of judicial independence and impartiality.

While until now, the Reserve Bank has maintained a more nuanced view of the current slow-down and tended to attribute it to cyclical factors, the fine print of RBI’s policy statement on Friday betray its concerns about the future.

The U.S. response to the Mideast crisis is not about protecting the world’s oil supply. It is to tighten control of the world’s oil supply, to protect profits for the U.S. oil monopolies, and to further control by U.S. global financial, military, and other corporations. This comes at the expense of the world’s working people, including those of the United States; it also comes at the expense of humanity’s future.

With the floods situation continuously getting grim, the future of Nitish Kumar as the chief minister of Bihar is at the stake. Even his close aides and friends interpret the intensity of floods as a warning sign for Nitish Kumar.

BHOPAL: Mystery shrouds the reasons behind frequent changes in the Special Investigation Team (SIT), constituted by the Madhya Pradesh Government to probe, what has come to be know as the ‘Honey trap case’. Within less than a week, the government has changed the head of the team twice, besides overhauling it. Initially, IGP Rajendra Kumar was appointed the head of the SIT. Within 24 hours, he was replaced by Sanjvee Shami, also of the IG rank. Six days later, he, too, was shunted out and Rajendra Kumar, an ADGP, took his place.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the candidates of the three major political fronts filing their nominations, the state is set for an absorbing contest for the five Assembly by-elections from the State.