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

Paradox is a situation when a mathematician proves a thing true which is otherwise untrue. The latest CII report on net job creation in the MSME sector probably falls in this category of paradox as against all gloom over joblessness in the country. The report was a surprise because only a few weeks ago NSSO’s leaked survey said unemployment rate was worst in 45 years. The chairman of PM’s Economic Advisory Council had said, “We will have a new round of the NSS which will… show …substantial employment and substantiated job creation”. Now CII has come up with a survey that proves his claim. Everything seems to have a pattern in this election season.

China once again came in the way of designating JeM terror boss Masood Azhar a global terrorist in the United Nation’s list and political parties in India have reacted. Two tweets from Congress leaders put the country’s main opposition party’s view on the global community’s failure to convince China in perspective. One from party spokesman Randeep Surjewala, which he tweeted within minutes of the news breaking, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s China policy has been a “series of diplomatic disasters” and the other from Congress President Rahul Gandhi who said that “Modi is scared of Xi Jinping.”

Distressing indeed is to watch our opposition leaders fighting among themselves for petty personal gains, than taking seriously the challenges staring at the face of the country. The leaders who claim themselves to be veterans and seasoned politicians in their pursuit to protect and preserve their personal interests have miserably failed the country.

Is there a Marxist position on fashion? Maybe not a “position” as such—though some Marxists have also been notable fashionistas (and others, distinctly scruffy dressers). However, a Marxist approach can reveal quite a lot. Fashion is (arguably) unique to and a characteristic of our species.

World Bank forecasts global economy to shrink to 2.9 percent in 2019, from 3 percent in 2018, citing the US-China trade tension. Given the fact that USA and China account for a little over one-fifth of world trade, the escalation in trade row will have a major impact on global trade, vis-a-vis, global economy.

LUCKNOW: Congress Party under the guidance of Priyanka Gandhi is building rainbow coalition of different smaller parties and groups to enlarge are support base to take on BJP in Uttar Pradesh. There is a realisation in Congress about its limitation due to two seats in Lok Sabha, six seats in Vidhan Sabha and six percents of vote share in the State.

India is witnessing the criminalisation of medical education that begins with licensing of colleges by the Medical Council of India (MCI), regulator of medical education and medical profession. According to sources in the Ethics Committee of MCI, this criminal nexus includes MCI, promoters of private medical colleges, real estate lobbies, local politicians and serving or retired doctors from government medical colleges. Large amounts of money changes hands at every stage of the medical education chain.

The AFL-CIO, the 12.5 million-strong labour federation, will not be making an early endorsement in the 2020 presidential race. “There will be no early endorsement of any of the candidates who have announced,” Lee Saunders, chair of the federation’s political committee, told People’s World.

Once again, India and Pakistan stood at the brink of war over Kashmir, and have only just begun to tone down the posturing and threats. With nuclear weapons uncomfortably close at hand, almost 2 billion people in the region face the risk of nuclear catastrophe. For well over three decades now, multiple simulations and projections have suggested that an India–Pakistan nuclear escalation could lead to millions of deaths in the region, rivaling past great famines. The consequences of a nuclear exchange of any magnitude could affect generations to come. Kashmir has proved an especially intractable political predicament for the two countries. As Arundhati Roy wrote in her 2017 novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, the confrontation over Kashmir is “a perfect war—a war that can never be won or lost, a war without end”.