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Unabated rises in food and fuel prices have kept India’s retail inflation at elevated levels. Even without getting into the nitty-gritty of detailed figures, the price trend are hurting and needs to be tamed if only for maintaining overall stability.

The President of India’s post is where quite often a key politician is put to pasture. The news cycle in the last couple of days moved from Prophet and Nupur Sharma to rioting and bulldozer, and Rahul Gandhi. Now, there is Sharad Pawar, tapped for the President of India’s post, and the ticker every half an hour belches updates.

Elections and defections go together despite stringent anti-defection laws in the country. The law proves ineffective as the legislators are lured by money and position. The lawmakers skirt around the rules, find loopholes to their advantage, and defy them.

Narendra Modi government that brought the four controversial labour codes in a great hurry – one in 2019, and three in 2020 when majority of workforce was even out of job and were struggling to survive – without consulting all stakeholders according to labour conventions, and now planning to implement them from July 2022 despite stiff opposition from the joint front of the Central Trade Unions, is still in the process of making draft of National Employment Policy initiated in 2013. It speaks a lot about the government’s seriousness about providing employment to the unemployed of our country.

Do we have two legal systems prevailing in the country? The Supreme Court actually said that India cannot have two parallel legal systems, “one for the rich and the resourceful and those who wield political power and influence and the other for the small men without resources and capabilities to obtain justice or fight injustice.” Well, reality suggests that we do have two parallel legal systems operating, as the recent tragic Mundka fire and the Jahangirpuri bulldozer-backed demolitions, both have demonstrated.

Like all other investment instruments, weaker investor interest has affected gold prices as well. There has been bi-directional equity volatility in recent times, but this has failed to support gold prices as short term momentum waned.

“Of course, you were not spreading rumours, the charge is you were spreading facts.” That’s the blurb on an RK Laxman cartoon of 1962, 60 years ago. Today’s cartoonists should take a kerchief out of Laxman’s pocket-cartoons. Lampooning is serious business. It should tickle the cerebral cells. The sarcasm should be biting, and the honest truth should not be lost in the caricaturing.

After three decades of political success across the length and breadth of the country from the west to the north to the centre to the north-east, the Hindutva juggernaut led by the BJP has run into heavy weather.

There is nothing to be surprised about the continuous exit from the Indian stock market by foreign portfolio investors (FPIs). It has been going on for the last several months. The market is overheated. It has been out of sync with the country’s economic growth since 2017 and corporate performance in general. On paper, India’s stock market is very large, probably the world’s largest. Yet, the daily stock trading covers barely five to six percent of the listed stocks. The FPIs, the biggest speculators in the Indian market, have suddenly become cautious about their investments in stocks due to uncertain conditions in the local as well as global markets.

How the President of India is elected? The Election Commission has notified the election of India’s next President 0n July 18. A look at the voting procedure, how the votes of MLAs and MPs are weighted, and how, previous elections have played out?