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Decent job creation in India continues to be indecent, if the latest Employment Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) provisional data released on January 20, 2025 is of any indication. The trend of increase in new EPF subscribers remains at very low. A total of 874420 new subscribers joined in November 2024, which was an increase of only 88,244 over the October 2024 figure of 786196.

KOLKATA: Grant of scheduled tribe status for left-out Gorkha tribes by the Union government remains a far cry and what is worse is that despite unanimity among political outfits in the Darjeeling hills on the ST tag demand, the Union government agencies responsible for a decision never indicate why the demand is pending for years. This, despite the fact, the Darjeeling Lok sabha seat has been won by the Bharatiya Janata Party since 2009. Darjeeling’s current MLA Neeraj Tamang Zimba, who is secretary-general of Gorkha National Liberation Front founded by Subhash Ghising, won the 2021 Assembly election on a BJP ticket. Zimba’s outfit is an ally of BJP.

Ever since the inauguration on January 20 of Donald Trump as the U.S. President for the second term, the series of announcements made by the far right American President targeted its neighbouring countries Mexico and Canada as a part Trump’s expansionist agenda, Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and imposed 25 per cent tariff on Mexico and Canada on their exports to the U.S. with effect from February 1 this year.

New Delhi: Aarohan, a non -governmental organisation, launched its state-of-the-art STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Lab on January 25, 2025. It is designed to cater to all groups of school-going children, providing access to modern technology, hands-on experimentation, and innovative educational tools.

In Bangladesh, a bunch of unelected interim 'rulers' led by economist Mohammad Yunus is desperately anxious to cosy up to Pakistan, from which their country had seceded violently only five decades ago. In a strange reversal of their own (instant?) history, Bangladeshis have shown an apparent inability to exist and function as an independent, sovereign country in South Asia — only, the irony of the present situation has been lost among Dhaka-based authorities for the moment.

On the 26th of January, 1950, India became a democratic country in the sense that India from that day would have a government of the people, by the people and for the people… What would happen to her democratic constitution? Will she be able to maintain it or will she lose it again?” Dr BR Ambedkar, the prime architect of our Constitution voiced his fear in these words on November 25, 1949 during his last address to the Constituent Assembly of India. This fear of Dr Ambedkar reverberates among the people when we see our Constitution and its core values of secularism, welfare state and federalism under threat.

The purpose of sending the Waqf Amendment Bill 2024 to the Joint Parliamentary Committee was to get an appropriated recommendations from the JPC after meaningful discussions on the contentious issue, but suspension of 10 opposition Members of Parliament during meeting on January 24, 2025, following accusation on the chair of autocratic and feudal behaviour and ruckus thereafter, shows that the purpose is going to be defeated.

A chorus of “establishment” voices, from consultancy firms to the financial press, has been demanding a boost to domestic consumption as a means of reviving the flagging growth rate of the Indian economy. The latest to join this chorus is the Reserve Bank of India which in its latest Bulletin has asked for a boost to consumption to “rekindle the animal spirits” of the “entrepreneurs” in the economy.

LUCKNOW: Milkipur assembly by-election scheduled on February 5 has become more interesting with the entry of the candidate from Azad Samaj Party of Chandra Shekhar Azad MP from Bijnore, a prominent dalit leader from Western UP.

AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal's nemesis Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is in town, asking funny questions like will Kejriwal take a bath in the Yamuna? The 'Yogi' was in the nation's capital fresh from a dip in the Ganga-Yamuna-Saraswati 'Sangam' in Prayagraj, where the 'Mahakumbh' is currently on at a scale never seen before.