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The final version of the World Development Report (WDR) 2019 of the World Bank released at the end of November 2018 landed like a bombshell. It was a powerful refutation of World Bank’s own 2016 WDR, which declared that the proportion of jobs threatened by automation was 69 percent in India and 77 percent in China. With such startling figures, the 2016 WDR figures stunned not only India but the entire world.

After having failed in setting agenda of choice by raising various emotional and sectarian issues, this week the Narendra Modi government is back on using old cases and filing new cases on the charges of sedition against those who had dared to speak against the government. In Assam a Left intellectual has been charge-sheeted for sedition as he has opposed the government on the issue of citizen’s bill.

BHOPAL: The Kamal Nath Government of Madhya Pradesh has made three important moves having far-reaching implications on the administration and politics of the state. The three decisions include associating private persons with governance, modification in the order scrapping the pension of MISA detainees and formal launching of farmers’ loan waiver scheme.

The defence industry is under serious threat. The right to pension of the government employees is also under attack. The present government with the sole intention of supporting the private corporate houses has decided to handover the strategic defence production and related activities like Research and Services etc. to the corporate houses, mainly to Amabanis and Adanis. The present government initially announced that “Seventy percent of the requirements of the Armed Forces are being imported and to replace the import, these products will be made in India in the name of “Make in India” by the private houses and multinationals and for that purpose 100 percent FDI in defence is permitted. Defence Technology is complicated and it takes years to develop it, and hence the few developed countries for whom defence equipment selling is a major source of income are neither prepared to give technology nor to invest money in our country.

Nawabs of Negativity! The gender-misnomer is glaring. In prime minister-producing Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, the ‘nawab’ is a female. Is she negative? Will Mayawati be able to consolidate Dalit votes behind her? The BSP supremo never talks off the cuff, trusting the written word to the inspired oral. Legend is Mayawati was picked up by Kanshi Ram and catapulted into politics when she was preparing for the Indian Civil Services. In hindsight, she would have failed viva voce. And general elections 2019 will likely miss a gender-bender of an outcome.

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a sudden and unexpected move of throwing crumbs of reservation in government jobs to the sections of society that have been ardent believers in the BJP philosophy. But the move was contrary to politics he has been pursuing for the five years. It is not even the party proposal as he has deliberately kept senior colleagues not only in party but also in government. He maintained similar secrecy as he had done in imposing the harsh economic measure of demonetization in November 2016.

The Supreme Court will Friday hear a plea from Ayyappa celibacy-busters Kanaka Durga and Bindu Ammini for police protection. The two want protection in the aftermath of the image-shifting feat they conjured up in the Kerala chaos they are in part responsible for, along with the top court itself; which, in a majority decision, informed that Swami Ayyappa has no special denomination or the right to remain aloof from female aged 10-50.

BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh government has started the process of receiving applications for farm loan waiver and Chief Minister Kamal Nath says that by the end of February the amount of loan waiver up to Rs. 2 lakh will be deposited in the accounts of eligible farmers.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: He came. He saw. But he failed to conquer. That broadly sums up Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kerala, despite the claims by state BJP leaders to the contrary.

LUCKNOW: Snubbed by SP-BSP alliance leaders Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawati, Congress is preparing to contest all the 80 Lok Sabha seats with the cooperation of smaller parties. And this means that UP is set to witness a three-cornered contest involving three alliances.