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BHOPAL: The surrender of high-profile BJP leader Sudhir Sharma is a major breakthrough in the investigations of Special Task Force (STF) of Madhya Pradesh police into various scams of State Professional Examinations Board, popularly known as Vyapam. After former minister, Laxmikant Sharma, Sudhir Sharma is another important ruling party leader, who was deeply involved in the various scams.

A very few social security measures for organized workers in private establishments in the country could truly boast of a successful instrument for retirees to enliven their otherwise staid evening to come to their aid than the pot of pension fund they contributed to in the career earlier. One such significant outfit set up with the passage of the Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 (EPF & MP Act) is the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) which has been administering the Act in letter and spirit down the decades. Currently, it implements three schemes framed under the Act viz., Employees’ Provident Fund Scheme (EPF), Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS) and Employees’ Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme (EDLI). The overarching objectives of the Act is to provide social security benefits to the working class in the form of provident fund, pension and insurance benefits with the EPFO remit being to enforce provisions of EPF & MP Act, 1952, recover and manage money held in Trust and provide satisfactory service to the members of the scheme.

The erstwhile Soviet Union got its R&D focus wrong in the 1960s and ‘70s. The cold war, nuclear arms race and satellite spying between Moscow and Washington DC made the giant Communist country’s centrally-administered economy focus on defence, nuclear, space technologies and heavy industry. The all-important national security issue had undermined the common man’s needs and ignored consumer and market preferences. Consumerism was taboo under Soviet communism. Moscow found it cheaper and easier to barter some of its high-end and heavy engineering technologies and products with friendly countries such as India to import low-technology consumer items such as soaps and detergents, shoes and leather goods, textiles, made ups, tea, coffee, spices, agri-products, organic chemicals, etc and some industrial products like copiers, dry cell and auto batteries, electrical and audio equipment, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

The Reserve Bank of India sees need for continued monetary vigilance on consumer price inflation, though moderating, and thus leaves policy rates unchanged (repo at 8 per cent as before). At the same time, it is providing further liquidity support for credit expansion to productive sectors, given improving growth prospects.

India has shown the industrialised countries they can longer have their way in multilateral trade negotiations at the expense of the developing world. The WTO General Council meeting that concluded in Geneva on July 31 failed to approve the protocol of amendment proposed by the 9th ministerial conference in Bali for enshrining the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) into the WTO Marrakesh Agreement.

By accepting a UN-backed legal verdict on its dispute with Bangladesh over maritime territories in the Bay of Bengal, India has scored a diplomatic point against China.

The fact that a strong government at the Centre now sets economic policies and has produced a budget, ostensibly growth-reviving but considered inadequate for targeted fiscal deficit reduction, and consumer prices softening but still above comfort zone, does not make ideal setting for the central bank to reverse gears abruptly.

LUCKNOW: BJP national president Amit Shah is facing biggest challenge in Uttar Pradesh to repeat the magic of Lok Sabha polls when party got 71 seats, to retain 12 assembly seats and take Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat from Samajwadi Party in by-elections to be held within next few weeks.

The bugging devices found at Nitin Gadkari’s official bungalow were of highly exception quality, such as generally used by Western countries. Shockingly, the Indian agencies which debugged the house, have indicated the role of a foreign hand in planting bugs. Which could be this foreign hand and why it chose Gadkari, who is a former BJP President and now holds the portfolio of Road Transport and Highways? Since 2011 he has been among the most important leaders of the BJP. His proximity with the RSS leaders is well-known. Are houses of other BJP ministers also bugged?

KOLKATA: Apparently economic stagnation breeds political opportunism in the context of West Bengal.