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As was expected the Reserve Bank of India’s monetary policy committee (MPC) on June 6, 2019 lowered its interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 5.75 per cent, the third such reduction since February. With the MPC already indicating in the last two policies that inflation would not be the only factor that would drive the decision on interest rate changes, it is not really a surprise that the RBI has gone in for a rate cut, especially after rather disappointing numbers have come out on gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the fourth quarter and unemployment rate.

July 19, 2019 will mark the 50th anniversary of bank nationalisation. Fifty years ago, in the year 1969, it was on this historic date of July 19, the government brought the Ordinance nationalising the 14 major private banks in our country. Since then the banks have chartered a new course linking banking industry with the overall national economic development. Shedding their baggage of class banking, banks transitioned to mass banking and became effective instrument of economic transformation. Banks became the engine of basic economic growth and development.

Voices of rebel demanding resignation of Tejashwi as the leader of opposition have started gaining momentum inside RJD. The senior leaders of the party who till other day were appreciative of his moves and held him as the future of Bihar, have started finding fault with him and his style of functioning.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was the subject of a plot to keep him in jail and stop him winning the 2018 presidential election, according to leaked documents. The Intercept website accused Brazilian Justice Minister Sérgio Moro of leaking information and advising prosecutors working on a lengthy anti-corruption probe into high-profile business leaders and politicians known as “Operation Car Wash.”

BHOPAL: In the eyes of the RSS Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi cannot be described as “martyrs”. Their killings were nothing but murders. This opinion is contained in an article published in the “organiser” which is regarded as the periodical which propagates RSS views. This article has been published in the June 2 issue of the periodical.

The dust has settled down on the elections; the victors and the vanquished have settled down into their respective spaces. It may be time to dispassionately examine what worked for the BJP and what went wrong with the Congress in their poll narratives.

Political scenario and the place remain the same. IN late sixties the governor Dharamvir had imposed president rule in West Bengal on the plea of deteriorating law and order. This time same scenario is being enacted this time too. The governor Kesari Nath Tripathi has apprised the prime minister of the deterioration of law and order in the state. Though earlier he described his meeting with Modi as routine exercise, he later confessed to a TV news channel that there may be need for President's rule in West Bengal if the situation deteriorates.

It might look a curious case to many that even before the first full-fledged meeting of the new council of ministers of the new Modi Government scheduled for 12 June 2019, a hurried inter-ministerial meeting was convened by Amit Shah on 11 June attended by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Labour Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar and Commerce and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal among others. The meeting decided to pass the pending labour reform legislations to convert 44 labour laws into 4 consolidated labour codes in the first parliament session itself as part of the first 100-days plan. Well, what was the urgency? Obviously, Modi wants to send a first encouraging signal to the industry at the expense of the working class in view of the bleak scenario into which his first term has landed the economy.

There’s a big Watergate parallel between Donald Trump and Richard Nixon: Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report is the Trump equivalent of the briefcase of grand jury evidence against Nixon which then-Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski sent to Congress 45 years ago.

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