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IAS officers don’t grow on trees. Both the Centre and states want them. Now, the Centre says it is facing a shortage of IAS and that the states are refusing to relieve IAS officers for central deputation. So, the Modi Government will amend IAS rules and divest the states of powers to veto the Centre’s request for IAS officers.

The move by the Modi Government to sell the public sector Central Electronics Limited (CEL) to a private company has led to widespread protests in the country. Retired directors and senior scientists of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have written a letter to the Ministry of Finance expressing concerns about the sale of its 100 per cent stake in Central Electronics Limited to a private entity.

KOCHI: The eighth annual conference of the Kerala Security Employees Union (KSEU) was held on January 13 and 14 in Ernakulam. KSEU is affiliated to All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC). KSEU president K Vijayan Pillai initiated the proceedings with the hoisting of the Red Flag in the presence of AITUC general secretary Amarjeet Kaur.

The recent announcement by the Union Government of converting a part of what Vodafone-Idea (VI) owes to the government into its shareholding, is another step in the long story of crony capitalism and so-called reforms in the telecom sector. The government has taken a 35.8 per cent shareholding in VI to reduce the two hundred thousand crore rupees that VI owns the government, and postponed payments of the rest for four more years. This will still leave the company in the hands of the two major private shareholders, Vodafone and Idea, who have amended the shareholders' agreement so as to exercise their “promoters rights” even without the requisite shareholdings. The government will still be its largest creditor, along with the public sector banks, while also being its major shareholder.

India suffers from the greatest tragedy of the century. It is the crisis of fragmentation. The Constitution that has always stood for multiplicity, faces the threat of autocracy. There is the majority with its divisive slogans calling for end of an age when all people lived in unity. The entire initiative is aimed at suffocating the voice of people even before it is communicated. The cry for hunger, livelihood, and finally life itself goes unattended. People have been reduced to caste, community and gender. Each one plays its divisive role, which promotes antagonism and feeds into our multiplicity. The areas are divided, localities are divided, every house lives in pain as people do not live as one. Each one has to live according to the space allotted to one. To honour human dignity has become an alien concept.

After releasing the standard operating procedure (SOP), the union agriculture ministry has issued guidelines for grants to popularize the usage of drones on Indian farms. The grants will be available until March 31, 2023, and cover expenditures for the purchase, hiring, and demonstration of agricultural drones. State agriculture universities, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, and ICAR institutions will get 100% or up to Rs 10 lakh in grants to purchase drones. Farmer producer organizations (FPOs) will get 75% or up to Rs 7.5 lakh funding while custom hiring centers set up by FPOs and cooperative society of farmers will receive 40% or up to Rs 4 lakh in grants to purchase drones.

Nothing will change and nobody in the Modi regime will act on his recommendation, but Justice (retd.) Rohinton Nariman is an optimist and he has given a call to junk the colonial sedition law. For him the “single-most important and cherished human right” is the freedom of speech and expression under Article 19 (1) (a), which is routinely trampled upon by the application of the sedition law.

Continuation of the new wave of COVID-19 has dampened the prospects of labour market recovery across the world unless special programmes are devised to support workforce, particularly the daily wagers and those working in the informal sector. The 2022 level for those without jobs have been just estimated by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) at 207 million compared to 186 million in 2019. It is quite disheartening.

The manner in which the tableaux presented by certain states for the Republic Day parade on January 26 has been rejected by the centre reveals a lot about the mindset of the BJP rulers.

Goa, with 40 seats, is going for elections on February 14. Hectic campaigning is on and already submission of nominations by the candidates has started with the two major contending parties the ruling BJP and the Congress set to field the respective party candidates in most of the seats. Congress, as of now, has fielded nomination in majority of the seats, the remaining will be done within the remaining days. Trinamool Congress has also started fielding candidates.