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In the run-up to the Karnataka assembly polls, with the State being one of the few largest producers of sugarcane in the country, the Union Cabinet approved financial assistance of Rs 5.50 per quintal (100 kg) for cane crushed by sugar mills in the extant 2017-18 sugar year (October-September) by way of production subsidy. The subvention is to be directly credited to the bank account of the cane growers, as they have not been the recipient of the “fair and remunerative price” (FRP) for sugarcane fixed by the Centre.

With daily worsening situation in the Kashmir Valley, the political parties including the partners of the ruling alliance have unanimously urged the Union government to declare ceasefire for the month of Ramadan and continue it till the end of Amarnath Yatra. They have cited the example of a similar ceasefire that was observed in 2000 when BJP leader Atal Behari Vajpayee was the prime minister.

The electoral battlefield in Karnataka is strewn with bodies, those of the dead and the wounded. Siddaramaiah has lost more than one arm. BS Yeddyurappa lost his cup of joy because there are these things called ‘slip’ and ‘lip’. Amit Shah lost his confidence. Rahul Gandhi his voice and PM Narendra Modi ‘face’.

Presidential elections will be held in Venezuela on May 20 at the same time as municipal and regional elections. Contrary to claims from some who support Donald Trump’s “regime change” agenda in the oil-rich country that Venezuela is a dictatorship, these elections will be the 25th national election or referendum since 1998. Current President Nicolas Maduro is standing, along with opposition candidates. The most prominent of these is Henri Falcon.

PATNA: Even a brusque caution from senior minister Sarju Roy to have the renewal of mining rights to companies investigated by some professional agency for wrong-doing, as the existing procedures are violation of court orders, the Bihar government has preferred to sit idle an allow the scamsters to have an field day.

By turning all predictions about Karnataka upside down, the BJP has shown yet again how effectively it runs the party’s election campaign. Disproving the belief that there was no wave in favour or against any party or that the outgoing chief minister Siddaramaiah had successfully countered the anti-incumbency factor, the BJP has demonstrated through its victory a remarkable rapport with the people. In contrast, Siddaramaiah was apparently living in an illusory world, secure in the belief that a lacklustre opponent like B.S. Yeddyurappa offered no real challenge.

The results of the Karnataka assembly elections have grim lessons for the opposition parties, especially the Congress Party led by Rahul Gandhi in determining strategy for the coming Lok Sabha elections in 2019.The BJP led by Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo has recorded a massive victory devaluing the Congress in this important southern state. This victory will give BJP a major boost in its coming campaign in the assembly elections in the three states-Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh by the end of the year. There is also a possibility that boosted by this victory, Prime Minister will prepone the Lok Sabha poll and hold it along with the assembly polls before the year end.

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

Two recent decisions from the Supreme Court of India have emphasised consent at the centre of adult intimate relationships, irrespective of the marital status of the parties. In both cases, the Court focused on the personal freedom and autonomy of adult persons to live as per their desires with whomsoever they wanted to live with. Neither the State nor non-State actors like family have any right to interfere with such decisions, if made out of free will. In one case, the daughter of a politician from Karnataka was forced into marriage by her family, and she then filed a habeas corpus petition in the Court seeking necessary reliefs.

The ideas of Marxism originated in the middle of the 19th century. It was then that two great social scientists, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, first realized that capitalism was a continuation of previous class systems where wealth was accumulated in private hands from the unpaid labor of workers.