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The announcement of the Rs 3 lakh crore relief package to the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) of India had created a hope, but the change in definition has induced a frustration. It is now clear that the entire amount of the package was not meant for the existing MSMEs, but a major chunk was intended to be given to bigger enterprises, who are now included in MSMEs by changing the very definition. The existing MSMEs are thus let down by the government and will get less than that of the originally announced amount of relief.

The greatest wave of protest to rock the United States since 1968 has prompted President Donald Trump to threaten his own people with the army. Trump’s attitude from the start of marches demanding justice for George Floyd, murdered on camera by police, has been calculated to inflame anger.

When the President of the United States says that he’ll be designating Antifa as a terrorist organization, a part of me thinks: well go on then, let’s see you try. Because this awful, foreign-sounding word “antifa” is only an abbreviation of “anti-fascist.” Organizations can be banned, but it isn’t so easy to do the same with ideas.

COVID-19 is primarily a non-political issue, or so one would like to believe. It is important to assess its significant impact on the poor for whom social distancing is a mirage, access to affordable health care is a chimera, and inaccessibility to food and other essentials is magnified by lockdown. Signs of judicial deference to the Executive and Legislature have been there for quite some time. It’s manner of dealing with Habeas Corpus Petitions concerning Kashmir, its willingness to transfer judges who are unpalatable to the Executive, the unbridled arrests under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the anti- Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) agitation highlight its ‘hands-off’ approach.

BHOPAL: At present Madhya Pradesh is facing three major controversies. Out of the three one is political and others relate to government policies. It is for more than a month reports were current that the state Ministry may be expanded any day. It may be mentioned here that after overthrowing the Congress government Shivraj Singh Chouhan took oath as Chief Minister on March 23. It was for the fourth time that Chouhan was sworn in as Chief Minister. But almost for a month he administered the state single handed. After that he added five Ministers to his team. Among those who were included in the ministry two belonged to Scindia group. Later the state was agog with the reports that the Ministry may be expanded any day.

No one has feared that India would become a problem for the world when corona hit it as the global fraternity was itself facing the worst nature of ravage by corona. Actually the people were worried whether the BJP government and the Prime minister, Narendra Modi will lead the country from front in fighting the dreaded disease.

WASHINGTON – From Barack Obama and Joe Biden to the AFL-CIO and progressive allies there have come declarations that the Minneapolis police killing of 46-year-old George Floyd on May 25 once again exposed the systemic racism that undergirds U.S. society. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency, added that this has been the case in America for 400 years.

It was certainly not an unusual move of the new Labour leader Keir Starmer to distance from Jeremy Corbyn’s policy on Kashmir and repositioning Labour on Kashmiri. The new leader of any political party, my not venture to alter the fundamental ideological line of the party, but he is always free to bring about changes in the strategies and tactics of the party keeping in view the immediate prevailing political needs of organisation.

The unlocking process of the Indian economy in phases which started from June 1, is going to be a tortuous one and the tackling of the problems emanating from the opening after 68 days of lockdown in four phases, requires visionary leadership from the centre as also the state governments. The centre this time left the decision to a big extent to the states since it perhaps understood the dimension of the damage that was caused to the economy and the lives of the common people, especially the migrant workers by sudden announcement of the lockdown from March 25. The damage is so extensive and the Covid management as of now is in such a precarious position, that the industries which are opening, may not get the confidence that the market for their products will improve soon.

Pictures and videos of Americans slugging it out in the streets with each other and with the police and National Guard over the Floyd death are full of reckless abandon, of people flouting every anti-coronavirus rule in the book; from social distancing thrown to the winds to facemasks missing from most mugs on show.