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The Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan Niazi created a precedent by patting his own back right after alighting at the Islamabad International Airport when he told the supporters of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf ,’ I feel like I am not coming here from a foreign trip but that I am returning after winning the World Cup.” There is no denying that the Pakistani Chief Executive never received such a media hype in Washington, albeit due in main to the communications craft by the Pak embassy out there in Washington.

The Supreme Court had last week advised parliament to consider enacting a new law to deal with ‘horrendous acts of mobocracy’, warning that incidents of lynching and cow vigilantism might rise like a ‘typhoon-like monster’ across the country.

The prolonged political crisis in Karnataka has demonstrated the ways in which nearly 35-year-old anti-defection law can be used and abused. There is further need to improve it, by debating and amending the existing law to make it foolproof to prevent Karnataka type of situation. The Karnataka developments manifested the tortuous working of India’s anti-defection law—and threw up a range of associated legal and constitutional questions.

In recent months, reports have been swirling that U.S. monopolies Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook—so-called “Big Tech”—may soon be broken up. Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has proposed a plan to do so using antitrust law. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are reportedly preparing for antitrust investigations into the four firms, and the Justice Department recently announced an additional review. House Democrats are planning a similar “sweeping review.” These companies, lawmakers say, have simply grown too big, hindering “competition” and violating users’ privacy.

The central trade unions (CTUs) — INTUC, AITUC, HMS, CITU, AIUTUC, TUCC, SEWA, AICCTU, LPF, UTUC and Independent Federations/Associations have strongly objected and condemned bulldozing of codification of labour laws and other laws in spite of strong objections from the trade union movement.

Occupational Health and safety has been an issue of serious concern of health personnel as well as the workers’ organizations. The 60th World Health Assembly held in Geneva in 2007 charted out Workers’ health: global plan of action. It recognizes that the ‘workers represent half the world’s population and are the major contributors to economic and social development. But despite the availability of effective facilities there remain large gaps between and within countries with regard to the health status of workers and their exposure to occupational risks. Only a small number of them have access to occupational health services’.

Boris Johnson’s election as Conservative leader has been greeted in Brussels with a rejection of his Brexit demands and issuing of a warning by the newly appointed European commission president Ursula von der Leyen about the “challenging times ahead”. The chances are bleak that EU leadership will mend its stance on the convoluted issue of Brexit. The situation has been simply complicated by the mess created by former UK Prime Minister Theresa May. Undeniably both sides have a “duty” to deliver a deal notwithstanding newly appointed president offering her congratulations to Johnson on his election as the prime minister of Britain.

The passage of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019 in the Lok Sabha amidst walk out of the opposition exposes the mentality of hunger for absolute power rather than intention of eradication of the mentality of violence in individuals. The bill aims at grabbing the power of branding an individual a ‘terrorist’ and of seizing the properties of the people and organizations which are to be labelled as such by the government in power. Nothing beyond it.

BHOPAL: It was a sixer, it was a master stroke by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, Karnataka avenged. BJP was stunned when Congress succeeded in manoeuvering two BJP legislators and showed that the party commands comfortable majority. After the result of division on a absolutely non-controversial bill, the Congress numbers touched 122 in a house of 230.

19 July 2019 marked the 50thanniversaryof bank nationalisation. At the time of nationalisation, the bitter opponents of the move were Jan Sangh’s Atal Behari Vajpayee and Swatantra Party’s Minoo Masani. Coming in that legacy, Modi and BJP cannot obviously acknowledge any positive contribution of bank nationalisation. And so, under Modi, the official discourse on banking reforms has given way to that of bank denationalisation.