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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Pala in Kottayam district is not an assembly constituency that luxuriates in its obscurity. It has all pretensions to national and international attention. The constituency’s unique selling point (USP) is the fact that it was represented by Kerala Congress(Mani) chairman, K. M. Mani for 54 years -a world record. A by-election has been necessitated by the passing away of the veteran who bestrode the constituency like a Colossus.

BHOPAL: All is not well in Madhya Pradesh Congress. Followers of various factional leaders are openly holding out threat that if their boss is not appointed as the President of the state Congress they may resort to other options. Most vociferous are the followers of Jyotiraditya Scindia. Many of them have gone to the extent of saying that they along with hundreds of followers may resign en mass if Scindia is not chosen for the top organisational post. At present Kamal Nath holds both the posts – Chief Minister and PCC Chief.

In apparent irony when finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman was talking about creating commercial banks capable of servicing a five-trillion dollar economy, the quarterly GDP growth figures showed a further dip.

Jammu & Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik in an interview to the Hindustan Times published on Friday has totally ruled out any dialogue with the mainstream political parties of Kashmir for bringing about an early solution of the lockdown in the valley which began on August 5.Malik said there will be no dialogue with the mainstream political parties or the separatists. He elaborated his approach by saying political dialogue is important but ‘we would engage with the Kashmiri civil society’. The interview is full of scorn and banter against the mainstream leaders like Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah and the impression has been given that the Government will look for the chosen people in Kashmir for a political dialogue ignoring the mainstream political parties.

National Theatre of USA’s The Lehman Trilogy, showing in theatres around the world, is a brilliant, tragic cautionary tale—that needs to come with a warning label!

RBI’s transfer of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the government of India is not likely to clear financial mess of the country that has been created by the Modi-led NDA since 2014. The extent of the economic and financial crisis is far worse than the gift of the RBI which is 1.25 per cent of the GDP in 2018-19.

After presenting a budget of newly elected government, Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman had to take back most of the recommendation made in the budget particularly about taxing super rich and financial transaction. All the tall claim made during budget presentation with bravado – had to be forgotten as there is massive economic slowdown.

The only positive aspect about the initiatives announced by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is that the government has finally acknowledged that the economy is in crisis. However, the directionlessness of the initiatives shows that the government still does not understand what ails the economy.

Modi Government is abrogating not only labour rights in the name of labour reforms, it has not spared the labour welfare schemes either. Labour welfare cesses are being abolished and labour welfare acts are being scrapped one by one. On 8 August 2019, the government notified repeal of the Beedi Workers Welfare Fund Act, 1976. Earlier, the cess acts or welfare funds acts relating to iron, manganese, chrome, mica, salt pan, limestone and dolomite mine workers has been abolished.

On Wednesday, August 28, 2019, the Supreme Court finally took up the slew of petitions challenging the validity of the Presidential Orders dated August 5 and August 6 respectively, after 24 days of complete lockdown of 7 million people in Kashmir, and directed that these petitions would be heard by a Constitution Bench of 5 Judges, from October, 2018 onwards, since it involved substantial questions of law. While issuing notice on these petitions, the Court rejected the objections of the Central Government, which contended that this was a ‘sensitive issue having cross-border repercussions’.