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The House of Commons Speaker, John Bercow’s vow to not to allow Boris Johnson to prorogue the parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit without the consent of MPs and his promise “will fight with every breath in my body” to stop it, has caused concern in the British political circle.

The vexed pension issue is making news again. The more prominently it figures in Modi Government’s scheme of things, the more contentious it gets. On August 9, 2019, the government announced Pradhan Mantri Kisan Maan-Dhan Yojana, a pension scheme for small and marginal farmers, an exact replica of the paltry scheme announced earlier for the unorganised labourers. If farmers in the age-group of 18 to 40 years start paying Rs.55 to Rs.200 for 42 to 20 years, at the age of 60 they would get Rs.3000 per month. This is passed off as an old-age security scheme for farmers. It has not dawned upon many supporters of the government that if a young farmer of 18 years starts paying Rs.55 a month from now on he/she can only get an amount after 42 years with which she/he can have not more than on square meal. That is monthly pension for you!

Capitalism is a crisis-ridden system. A crisis anywhere in the global capitalist system can become a world contagion. It is only a matter of time before a new one occurs, perhaps even more destructive than the 2007 financial crisis. Neoliberalism is the current set of economic policies defining globalization. The extreme right originated these policies to undo the New Deal and Great Society gains and reverse the falling rate of profit.

A unique feature of all environmental reports is that they are never received by the governments, for which these are essentially meant, in the same earnestness with which those reports are prepared. There is a complete disconnect between the two sides.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind. So goes the Biblical saying. Kerala has just had another date with disaster, exactly a year after the century’s worst floods battered the State almost beyond recognition.

It has 10 days that the Central Government has unilaterally and arbitrarily abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution in the name of that elusive phrase ‘Vikas’ or ‘development’, which the rest of India has been dying to witness for the last 5 years. Instead of ‘ache din’ for other States, the Modi 2.0 Government was bringing ‘achhe din’ for Kashmir. So to bring ‘achhe din’, it has completely shut down all communications, including mobile network, internet services, and even landline (which did not even happen in the heights of militancy in the 1990s), while Section 144, CrPC is imposed in most areas of Jammu & Kashmir, and even in some parts of Ladakh.

It is Independence Day, a day for reckoning, for taking stock of the past, going deeper into the present, and for trying to fathom the shifts in future. Past could be a year, decade or few months. The signals are that democracy has been brought to its edges. The second term of five years for the BJP has started with a stormy session of the Parliament, starting with budget with its fault lines, triple talaq that has sharp edges on both sides, labour laws that promote unremunerated labour, draft education policy to spread illiteracy, the health policy permitting quacks to practice medicine, and the amendment to Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act which can now be misused to label anyone as a terrorist.

Planned trade deals with the United States could see Britain dragged into a Pentagon-led war on Iran, War on Want has warned.

BERLIN: The wise priest Laocoön, old legends say, vainly warned against the famous “Trojan horse.” A hostile god sent giant serpents which strangled him when the big wooden present was opened. The soldiers hidden inside opened Troy’s gates so the Greek battalions could rush in, kill the men, enslave the women and destroy the city. Its ruins are still being uncovered.

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