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The US-China trade war has taken a new shape after Trump administration evinced interests for re-joining the TPP (Trans – Pacific – Partnership). Seemed to have been flattened by Chinese bellicose and domestic lobby by US farmers, Trump administration is likely to shift pressure on China by joining TPP. Joining TPP will help USA unleash bigger pressure on China, jointly with other member countries of the region, who are incidentally the major trading partners of China.

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

On 19th April, 2018, the Supreme Court of India dismissed the series of petitionsseeking an independent probe into the death of CBI Special Judge Loya, who allegedly died of cardiac arrest on 1st December, 2014. Judge B.H. Loya was hearing the Sohrabuddin encounter case, wherein Amit Shah was the main accused, when he died. The story first brought out by the Caravan in November, 2017 indicated many suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Judge Loya, and how it seemed ‘unnatural’. This created a huge outrage in the media and in public domain, thereby forcing the State Government to institute a ‘discreet enquiry’ into the matter on 23rd November, 2017.

Close on the heels of an open letter written to Narendra Modi by 49 former bureaucrats about the “terrifying state of affairs” in India, has come yet another missive by as many as 637 academics in India and abroad who have voiced a similar concern.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Cometh the hour, cometh the man. And the chosen man at this critical juncture in the country’s political history is CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury.

Buoyed by the leg up in solar power development in the country, rooftop solar is fast catching up with land becoming scarce, particularly around major cities where solar provided a viable solution to tackling peak power demand. With net metering fast catching up, solar power provided an option to drastically cut monthly electricity bills. Along with rooftop, a new development to erect floating solar power plants on ponds and lakes has opened up opportunities to provide solar power in a big way in rural India. This is precisely the reason the Narendra Modi government has decided to step up rooftop solar power generation to 20 Gw and that of floating solar power to 10 Gw as part of its ambitious solar power generation of 100 Gw by 2022. Solar power was slow to pick up in India when compared to China. But lately there has been a sudden spurt in India and by March 2018, cumulatively India would have generated 20 Gw of solar power and nearly 10-12 Gw of solar power was commissioned in 2017-18 alone.

Indians have been suffering in the grinding mill of Modi’s monetary policy misadventure for one-and-half years, which began in November 2016 with the announcement of demonetization. Mismanagement of currency notes and coins created a severe “cash crunch” on the one hand, and excessive supply of coins in the market has created the problem of plenty on the other. There are no takers for the smaller coin of Re 1 denomination in several parts of the country. Government policies, Reserve Bank of India, and other banks are responsible for this. They also have failed to check the menace of counterfeit notes and coins, the entry of which in the banking system has broken all the records in 2017.

Now that there is an ordinance to deliver death to rapists of children below 12, there are those who are calling for a “nuanced look” at the whole thing. Their argument: Death penalty for both rape and murder will make rapists kill without compunction; most child and infant rapes are committed by relatives and if rape begets death then family councils will rule not to report; in cases of gang-rape, the judge will baulk at sentencing everyone in the group to death. Last, death penalty has failed as a deterrent to murder.

It is good to know that India’s rich are getting richer. The country’s $ billionaires’ club is expanding. Fifty-six new members joined the club, last year. Old ones are amassing more wealth every year than ever before. Some are shedding sticky assets after squeezing them for years when they were good. The higher GDP growth is clearly contributing to their higher wealth creation and retention. “India is now the third largest billionaire creating country in the world. When India’s GDP touches $ 6 trillion by 2022, we expect the number of billionaires to at least double,” said Anas Rahman Junaid, Managing Director and Chief Researcher, Hurun Report India. Even a large section of India’s literate poor is happy to know that the country is doing well in producing billionaires in comparison with other developing and developed nations. Their feeling is almost on the same lines as those of India’s famished and undernourished getting exhilarated to hear that so many of their country’s representatives booked gold in the recent Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

The re-election of Sitaram Yechury as the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) at the just ended 22nd congress of the CPI(M) assumes special significance in the present period of political turmoil when all opposition parties including the Congress are feeling the need for giving a sharp edge to the moves of all out unity of the anti-BJP parties to drive out the saffron forces from the seat of power at the centre after the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.