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Job creation in India is critical for economic revival in the post covid era. This is more so as about 11 million people enter job market every year and, according to CMIE, an additional 121 million people have lost jobs in view of the pandemic. They too need to get back their jobs. That apart several million people move out of agriculture in search of jobs outside faming every year. This is a grim situation but global economic and geo-political situation has opened the door to convert this challenge into opportunity.

Fear is eating into the Bharatiya Janata Party that the dark-horse Congress could come from nowhere to upset the BJP’s applecart in Uttar Pradesh. Partly because Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the tip of the Congress thrust, is still an unknown quantity even if she’s a highly recognizable face in the whole of India.

The MGNREGS was introduced by the UPA-I government despite opposition from the neo-liberal lobby within it, owing inter alia to the active intervention of the Left which was supporting that government from outside. It was restrictive from the beginning: it promised a maximum of only 100 days of employment in a year, and that too for just one member of a rural household. But within those restrictions it conferred an economic right: employment could not be refused and if it was not provided within a certain period then the person seeking employment had to be paid a compensation. It was, in short, a demand-driven programme: employment had to be provided on demand.

Modi’s moves to privatise public sector banks have now met with stiff opposition by bank employees and officers. The Union government has labelled it as much-needed banking reforms, while agitators sense some foul play just to hand over the public sector banks to “crony capitalists”. The same story is being replayed, as we have seen regarding farm sector reforms, labour reforms, and insurance sector reforms – agitators alleging them to be pro-corporate and demanding their rollback. With repeal of the infamous three farm laws, agitators are emboldened, and India may well expect a series of agitations if the Union government does not review its approach to privatisation of public sector.

“Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders—presidents or prime ministers — who subvert the very process that brought them to power. Some of these leaders dismantle democracy quickly, as Hitler did in the wake of the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany. More often, though, democracies erode slowly, in barely visible steps”, wrote Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt.

Bhubaneswar: Chief Coach Graham Reid on Thursday asserted that India will play an attacking game against Germany in the semifinals of the Junior Hockey World Cup on Friday adding "It will be a challenging game for us but I am confident if we play our best, then we will win."

Pune: Kartik Sharma of Gurugram fired a sizzling nine-under 60 to emerge sole leader on day two of the Rs. 40 lakh Pune Open Golf Championship here on Thursday.

The demands of the farmers are yet to be met in full. It is despite the announcement of repeal, followed by its getting passed in the Parliament, which was completed in just few minutes disallowing all debates.

The first day of the winter session of parliament revealed a great deal of what the Modi government’s attitude to parliament is – outright contempt for parliament and its democratic functioning.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s comments on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led presently by Sonia Gandhi, after her meeting with NCP supremo Sharad Pawar in Mumbai on Wednesday has created a big row in the political circles, especially among the opposition parties who are opposed to the BJP and are looking for a strong alternative to fight Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.