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Prime Minister Narendra Modi is probably making the same mistake as Mrs. Indira Gandhi did as the country’s prime minister almost four decades ago. The promulgation of ordinance to ban the proposed strike by all major trade unions at the Ordnance Factories Board (OFB) and its 41 units from July 26 partly likens Mrs. Gandhi’s use of ordinance to ban strikes by industrial workers, so many years ago. The union law ministry recently notified an ordinance that prohibited employees engaged in essential defence services from taking part in any agitation or strike. The Essential Defence Services Ordinance 2021 came in the backdrop of major federations of unions connected with nearly 80,000 OFB employees making an announcement of launching an indefinite strike from July 26 in protest against corporatisation of the board.

June marked the first anniversary of the gory and shocking custodial death of a father-son duo in Sathankulam, Tamil Nadu, during the pandemic. The deaths had triggered outrage in India even more as it transpired days after the brutal killing of George Floyd by cop Derek Chauvin during his arrest in Minneapolis, USA.

In June, the Supreme Court gave its final judgment on a fresh plea in a pending suo motu case of May 2020 in which the top court had taken cognizance of the difficulties migrant workers faced during the COVID-19 lockdown. The court directed the Centre and the states to devise and implement schemes to provide migrant workers with ration. The SC also directed the states to run community kitchens and register unorganized labourers to help them access welfare schemes.

Some recent policy decisions made by Government of India (GOI) in the context of the civil strife in Myanmar have come at a price. Negative perceptions of the ruling NDA II as a regime with a paranoid obsession about national security and an expansion of commercial interests of selected Indian corporate concerns abroad, have been strengthened in the Northeast. During the past few weeks, anti- Indian criticism has acquired a new keener edge among major sections of liberal opinion in the NE and Myanmar, going by local media accounts.

Commentators falling back on the usual tropes to understand in the changes in Narendra Modi cabinet have predictably fallen short.

Dr. Ian D’Souza, medical director of the Holy Family Hospital, Mumbai, reportedly informed the Bombay High Court on July 5, 2021, that Fr. Stan Swamy’s “[c]ause of death is definitely pulmonary infection and Parkinson’s disease among others. There were post-COVID effects on his lungs.” The fatal ailments the doctor listed were but the natural consequences of the underlying cause of Fr. Stan’s death. Fr. Stan lost his life because of errors in judicial judgment – errors that could and should have been avoided.

LUCKNOW: Irrespective of the results of Zila Panchayats where BJP won maximum number of seats the opposition parties are gearing up for Mission 2022 assembly polls. Samajwadi Party being major opposition party has given call for state-wide protest on July 15 to galvanise and mobilise party leaders and grass-root workers to stage dharna from tehsil level to state quarter.

The major cabinet expansion and the reshuffle of the second Narendra Modi government have brought the North-East into the national picture. The region will now have 5 union ministers. This is the highest representation at the centre from the region, which often used to get neglected in the past by Delhi.

Almost a year and half into the crisis, there is still a risk of a rapid build-up of long-term unemployment. At the end of 2020, there were indeed 60 per cent more people unemployed for at least six months. This figure has continued to grow in the first quarter of 2021. The workers who have not regained normal hours face an increasing risk of entering open unemployment. At the same time many of those who lost their jobs in the first phase of the pandemic have been jobless since then and may find it increasingly difficult to compete with those whose jobs have been previously sheltered, since many of the job retention schemes are rolled back.

In a stealthy game played over two decades, corporate India is walking away with huge wealth transfers, largely from the public banking system. After much delay, the halting process of settling the bad debt of defaulting corporates using the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) is being completed in a rising number of cases. When examining the outcome of cases of completed resolution what emerges is that (i) public banks are taking huge “haircuts” and suffering losses, the burden of which falls on the tax payer who funds recapitalisation; (ii) those who acquire the assets of the corporate defaulters that underlie this debt, obtain it at bargain prices; and (iii) promoters and principal share owners who are the managers of the defaulting corporate are beneficiaries of massive debt write offs in companies from which they skimmed profits in the past. Incurring debt, defaulting on its repayment and arriving at a settlement that may or may not bring in a third party seems to be a means to transfer wealth from the State to big business in post-liberalisation India.