View Articles

‘This or that’ has been Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s lot ever since he took charge of India in mid-2014. All of us face ‘this or that’ situations in life, there's a Hamlet in all of us. But prime ministers should not allow the Hamlet in them to take charge.

The United States of America has left the United Nations Human Rights Council. This news came as a shock to some and as an eventuality to many. This latest decision is part of a broader foreign policy shift that is being witnessed under the Donald Trump administration in the White House. A greater disengagement by the United States when it comes to multilateral instruments.

India and China do not enjoy natural bonhomie due to historic and legacy issues that range from border disputes of bygone decades to the latest crop of problems originating from the dumping of the Middle Kingdom’s cheap products into the Indian markets. Yet as the adage goes, enemy’s enemy is a friend, India and China have warmed up to espousing the common cause of hitting the rich world where it hurts their strong domestic interests. As the trade majors in the WTO such as the United States and the European Union have questioned India’s Minimum Support Price (MSP) for guaranteed returns to farmers and the public stockholdings of food grains for targeted distribution to the weak and the vulnerable, India has garnered the support of Beijing in a measured and nuanced proposal for the rich world to do away with their bloated farm subsidies where the WTO has let them higher amounts beyond de minimus (ceiling) norms.

Of the three BJP ruled states going to polls at the end of the year, the party is really worried about Rajasthan. It is more so after it lost to the Congress two parliamentary and one Assembly seats recently, which had proved the anti-incumbency factor was working against Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje. The BJP is desperate to retain Rajasthan and so is the Congress – which wants to return to power. The Congress and the BJP have been alternating in power in the state for the past three decades and more.

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

On 6th June, 2018, the Maharashtra police in one swoop arrested five activists, including a lawyer known for his work on dalit rights and political prisoners, in connection with caste-based violence that erupted in Bhima-Koregaon town in Maharashtra in the first week of January, 2018. The five activists include Surendra Gadling, Advocate and General Secretary of Indian Association of Peoples’ Lawyers (IAPL); Rona Wilson, PR Secretary, Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP); Professor Shoma Sen, Head of English Department, Nagpur University; Sudhir Dhawale, founder of Republican Panthers Jaatiya Antachi Chalwal and Mahesh Raut, anti-displacement activist and Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellow (PMRDF).

“Enough moping, this is a mope-free zone,” former United States President Barack Obama told ‘high-dollar’ Democrats the other day, asking them to pull up their socks and get ready for the 2020 presidential bash. His message found echo in God’s Own Country Kerala, where newly elected Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA) president, actor Mohanlal, told actor Dileep, accused in a sexual assault case, to stop moping and start embracing AMMA once again like any good son should.

The landslide victory of the maverick Leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in the crucial Presidential elections in Mexico on Sunday, comes as a major boost to the leftist forces in Latin America who have been fighting a battle for survival after a pink tide in the first decade of this century.64 year old Obrador, called AMLO, fought for president’s position earlier twice in 2006 and 2012 but this time, his success was overwhelming as he secured 49 per cent of the votes polled as against his closest candidate Anaya who secured 26.7 per cent. The candidate of the ruling PRI Meade stood third scoring only 15.3 per cent. The Mexican voters resoundingly supported AMLO for bringing about the changes for which he campaigned in the last six months.

After Nitish Kumar walked out from the grand alliance, Rahul Gandhi, then Congress general secretary, had accused him of sacrificing his credibility and rules for power. Power makes a man lose his credibility, he had stated.

It is good to know that the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) investment in equities via exchange-traded funds (ETFs) generated 17.23 per cent return as of February this year. It had invested Rs 41,967.51 crore in ETFs. EPFO had sold ETFs worth Rs 2,500 crore in March. Unfortunately, stock prices have dipped since then. For instance, an individual investment in a major private pension fund such as HDFC Life, which was valued at Rs.15,03,673 as on January 29, 2018, lost its value to Rs.14,56,976 on June 23, 2018, as the market dipped. Anyway, EPFO’s investment in ETFs is not large compared to the total fund at its disposal.