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THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A deft political move from the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) has knocked the stuffings out of the criticism levelled by the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Sangh Parivar against the move to organize a women’s wall on January 1, 2019.

BHOPAL: There is no end to the difficulties being faced by Kamal Nath, the new chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. He took oath on December 17 and constituted his cabinet on December 25. But even four days after being sworn-in, all the ministers are without portfolios. This is a strange situation and has made Congress a laughing stock. It has already eroded the prestige and authority of the chief minister.

The BJP has restarted its political machine after a brief halt. Only a fortnight ago the party had suffered a humiliating defeat in the state assembly elections of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan. Party president Amit Shah has already appointed election in-charges in 17 states and a Union Territories to oversee preparations for the parliamentary elections due in April-May next year. Though the party postures a brave face, the narrowing options have put them in great duress. Anti-incumbency is a reality. The strife within and outside the party and the alliance has already surfaced. The Sangh Parivar is alarmed at the prospect of losing the electoral battle of 2019, which has made them desperate.

Some strikes stand out as unique in terms of their overall impact. Take the case of 26 December 2018 strike by a million bank employees. Disrupting nearly 30 lakh cheque clearances worth anywhere between Rs.20 lakh and Rs 25 lakh crore in the estimates of bank union leaders and much more in terms of online transactions, it is akin to a de facto mini-general strike with huge losses all around.

What should be the primary agenda of the year 2019 which is the last year of the second decade of the 21st century?.The outgoing year was marked by the farmers distress, job losses and the talk about widespread insecurity among both farmers and workers in terms of their livelihood. Forget talking about improving the lot, the immediate issue in 2018 was the constant battle of the common masses to maintain their existing level of financial viability. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s acche din was forgotten, it was bure din for the vulnerable sections of the society.

As a sequel to the Ministry of Home Affairs notification of December 20, 2018 authorising ten central security and intelligence agencies to intercept, monitor and decrepit all information on any computing device, Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has issued a draft Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, to elicit response from internet service providers (intermediaries or online platforms) till January 15, 2019, to help the NDA Union Government notify the draft Rules for implementation.

BJP president Amit Shah acceding to the demand of JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar to let him contest 17 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections has not come as surprise. Even before the seat sharing process began, it was known that BJP would not engage Nitish on this issue; instead it would settle down to his demands.

Ayodhya, Sabarimala, Gurugram, Akbar Fort, Noida, lunatic asylum, pilgrimage centre, women’s right to pray, Muslims’ right to pray… Since May 26, 2014, ever since BJP won the rulers’ grubstake, religious issues have acquired a political colour, which has gotten a deeper shade with general elections 2019 approaching. The Sangh Parivaar is basically a politico-religious configuration. It mirrors monotheistic religions, which themselves are not beyond politics. But the name of the game in India is religious polarization to win elections.

The warning signs of a planetary emergency abound: Record heat, massive wildfires, extreme weather events, declining agricultural yields, sea level rise, spreading diseases, mass species extinction, and a climate refugee crisis. The latest report by the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ominously warns the Earth’s inhabitants have 12 years to avert the worst climate catastrophes and “must act on a scale that has no documented historical precedent.”

DUBAI: The current balance of payments crisis in Pakistan evoked my memories of visiting Argentina as a Chase Manhattan derivatives banker in the 1990s. Domingo Cavallo’s artificial peso peg against the US dollar led to a currency collapse, banking failures and political chaos (five Presidents in a single year!). The analogy with the abandonment of Pakistan’s rupee peg in early 2018 is unmistakable. The scale of monetary mismanagement in Pakistan ensures a systemic external debt meltdown in 2019. Why?