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On 30th July 2019, Modi Government passed the Code on Wages Bill 2019 in the Lok Sabha, which provides for a national floor wage. On 23 July 2019, while tabling the Bill, the Labour Minister, Mr. Santosh Gangwar simultaneously proclaimed—obviously to reassure the corporates—a Cabinet decision to hike the national floor wage to Rs.178 per day—a ridiculous increase of Rs.2 from the national floor wage of Rs.176 fixed in 2017! This is even more ridiculous because this national floor wage is below the prevailing statutory minimum wage in 28 out of 29 States, the sole exception being Nagaland! What is the point in coming up with such a floor wage?

President Obama on December 17, 2014 announced a U.S. opening to Cuba. Months later there was a U.S. embassy in Havana. Beginning in late 2016, however, some diplomats there –CIA agents among them – experienced strange noises, hearing loss, headaches, impaired memory, confused thinking, dizziness, impaired vision and more. Expressing safety concerns, the State Department in September, 2017 recalled most of its employees from its Embassy in Cuba.

Once again the same old story was seen to be replayed on the floor of Rajya Sabha. Notwithstanding their pledge to defeat the Triple Talaq Bill the left and secular parties helped the BJP government to turn into a law abstaining from voting. If these forces had not abstained from the voting the bill must had been defeated.

Green shoots are visible in the Sino-India trade relation as an impact of USA- China trade war, notwithstanding global trade is embroiled in disruption. In other words, a third force became key role player to cool Sino-India trade relation, even though a long parley was made bilaterally before. Disgruntled by big trade balance, alleging China for dumping goods, trade relation is now seen with a volte-face of China, surging imports from India and restricting exports to India.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor is at it yet again. The MP from Thiruvananthapuram has, once again, created a flutter with his latest statement that the Congress has become a rudderless ship.

It was the part of the strategic move of the BJP to stifle the voice of secular and nationalist forces that a group of 62 individuals, all members of the saffron party, launched blistering attack on the group of 49 eminent persons of indulging in 'selective outrage and false narratives' on mob lynching.

When the Prime Minister told the nation in a special broadcast on March 27 that India had been able to develop an anti-satellite (A-SAT) missile which had shot down a low earth-orbiting satellite (one of India’s own), the country was in election mode and many thought it was an election gimmick. Few realized that it was not a one-off exercise but the first step in a well-thought-out plan to defend India from space attacks which had become a distinct and dangerous possibility with China developing a wide range of anti-satellite weapons – both kinetic and electro-magnetic.

The Nationalist Congress Party is going through a difficult time ahead of the Maharashtra Assembly elections going by the erosion taking place in the party in the past few days. The Assembly polls are due in October. The NCP chief Sharad Pawar has alleged that the defection from his party to the BJP/ Shiv Sena was because of the saffron party’s manipulations. Added to that, while Pawar is trying to do some damage control, recently the Election Commission has sent a notice to the NCP removing it from the list of national parties.

Under increasing pressure from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in Bengal is yet to formulate an effective counter strategy. TMC supremo, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has met election strategist Mr. Prashant Kishore seeking expert advice several times, as a rare ‘first’. Significantly, only Abhishek, her MP nephew, attended these talks. More senior leaders were kept out, fuelling speculation within TMC ranks. In terms of tangible outcome, except for two programmes that involved amass mobilisation of supporters, nothing has followed.

Integration of South Asia still remains a distant dream. Pakistan seems to be the only irritant in the way of consolidation in the region. The bitterness between the two major powers, India and Pakistan, has stalled the process in the regional body, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Islamabad has denied India access to another SAARC country, Afghanistan. But Iran, which is not a South Asian country, has offered New Delhi to use its Chabahar port and transport goods to Afghanistan. India has partially developed the port and goods are being transported to Afghanistan. India has already developed a 240-km-long road connecting Chabahar with Afghanistan.