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Pledging inflated stocks to borrow big from India’s public sector banks seems to have become a routine practice in India. Surprisingly, the Reserve Bank (RBI), the banking regulator, and the government, are doing little to control such practices by holding bank management as responsible as those adventurous borrowers. There are reasons to be worried about the growing financial frauds. RBI’s mind-boggling admission that India lost Rs.100 crore to bank fraud every day over the past seven years under the present government hides more than it reveals on how the practice has been gaining ground year after year right under the nose of the regulator. From April 2015-December 2021, a total of Rs. 2.5-lakh crore worth financial frauds was detected in India.

There has been a noticeable increase in illegal immigration from Nepal into parts of India in recent months owing to the continuing economic crisis in the former Himalayan kingdom. Concern has been expressed recently in the North Bengal-based mass media about an influx of unemployed migrant Nepali youths taking up temporary odd jobs in local tea gardens, fuelling labour tensions.

India, an ancient civilization, has been home to largest number of superstitions and myths in the world. Indian society, amidst regional variations, has always been very conservative and superstitious. Mindset of people has hardly changed despite great reforms in the 19th and 20th centuries. Average Indian consciousness is mostly clouded by obtrusive superstitions and prejudices. Country presents a bewildering picture about the prevalence and practices of superstitions, myths and illusions. Social sciences reveal that 98 per cent of the adult population of the earth carries some baggage of superstitions, myths and illusions over their inborn and inherent prejudices. Rest two percent is rationalists, who also are not completely free from some prejudices or the other.

Think that the modern nation-state originated with the emergence of the 17th-century beginnings of the era of science and reason? Think again.

Ever since Covid happened to humans, the World Health Organization has disappointed a lot of people. First it seemed to let off China with a light rap on the wrist. Then, it floundered in the number-crunching. So much so, it gave to our own high-flying Prime Minister Narendra Modi the blushes when it appeared to agree with blistering Modi-baiters that India’s actual Covid death figures were probably 40 or 50 times more than the figure doled out by the Modi government’s statisticians. Now, after the feeling settled that Covid wouldn’t strike again, that the Omicron variant was the last of new coronavirus, the WHO says there is a new coronavirus kid on the block, christened “Arcturus” or XBB.1.16.

International Labour Organization (ILO) has categorically told the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) that social justice is indispensable in protecting the workforce since inequality has been growing worldwide. The importance of the statements lies in the fact that these have been delivered at a time when the world labour market is likely to suffer further due to estimated economic deceleration in 2023.

Except in war-time, capitalism invariably seeks to control inflation by creating a recession; and this is so even when the inflation has been caused by an autonomous increase in capitalists’ profit-margins which are downward inflexible and hence would not be reduced by a recession. This strategy is pursued because a recession invariably lowers the demand for primary commodities and hence their prices; this serves to lower inflation. Likewise a recession increases the unemployment rate and thereby reduces the bargaining strength of the employed workers, which means that the workers do not get wage increases to compensate them for the rise in their cost of living; this also serves to lower the rate of inflation.

This spring has been a triumphant one for Chinese diplomacy, from the breakthrough in Iran-Saudi relations to Friday’s high-profile summit with Brazilian President Lula. Lula’s remarks on moving away from trade in US dollars show Chinese President Xi Jinping’s description of China and Brazil as “comprehensive strategic partners” has real content.

A graph tweeted by Rahul Gandhi, sourced to ‘India’s Consumer Economy 360 Survey’, and showing that between 2016 and 2021 income of the poor class decreased by about 50 per cent has put the focus on the think-tank that produced the survey report. Rahul cited the graph to back his claim that ‘no matter how much the public is suffering from inflation and unemployment, the ‘suit-boot government’ has only one target — to fill the coffers of ‘friends. According to the graph, while the poor people saw their income reduce by half, the income of the rich class increased by 40 percent.

With day-long protests by Congress across the country recently, the disqualification of Rahul Gandhi from Parliament has given shape to political chessboard, setting up the opening pieces for the 2024 election battle. How events pan out depends on subsequent moves of various protagonists. We can, however, make preliminary observations.