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September 26, 2021 will mark the completion of 10 months of farmers’ agitation against Modi’s three controversial farm laws, and the next day on September 27, there will be Bharat Bandh. The call is given by Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), at a time when the political corridors are being haunted by the farmers’ voice, particularly in poll bound Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. It is signaling a defining era in Indian politics, since politics without farmers seems not possible.

The stock market seems to be in a great hurry to pronounce the end of the Covid crisis. This week headline indices clocked new records, with Sensex soaring past 60,000 and the Nifty inching close to the 18,000 mark. The temporary scare of the collapse of the Chinese real estate giant Evergrande as well as the prospects of central banks ceasing their support programmes launched in the aftermath of the pandemic have not weighed down the markets, not only in India, but all over the world.

The Congress, it appears, has a death wish. Otherwise why it should destabilize, the Punjab government, headed by Capt. Amarinder Singh. It is a established norm that the Chief Minister and PCC President should be on same wave length. Why then Navjot Singh Sidhu was appointed PCC President without the knowledge of the CM; not only that Amarinder Singh was not even consulted.

The Supreme Court has expressed its desire to set up a committee of experts to study the allegations of illegal surveillance using Pegasus spyware and in likelihood will issue orders next week. The apex court's observations on constituting the committee assume significance in view of the Centre's statement that it would set up an expert panel on its own to look into the grievances of the alleged surveillance of certain eminent Indians by hacking their phones using Israeli firm NSO's spyware, Pegasus.

Kalyani: FC Goa outplayed Delhi FC 5-1 to storm into the semifinals of the 130th Durand Football at the Kalyani Stadium on Friday.

Bhima Koregaon accused activists Shoma Sen and Sudha Bharadwaj who are languishing in the Byculla Jail of Mumbai after being accused of conspiracy against the state by the National Investigating Agency (NIA), are facing serious danger to their lives. At least 20 persons have allegedly tested positive for COVID-19 at Byculla women’s jail, according to Koel Sen, daughter of activist Shoma Sen. Out of these at least two positive patients belong to the same barrack and there is every possibility of the two accused activists being infected.

On a Sunday or for that matter on any of the weekdays, Mumbaikars and other Maharashtra citizens can expect a war of words between Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari on anything that is grist for the mill. The two stand ever ready to lock horns. Right now, it’s over the brutal ‘Sakinaka rape-cum-murder’ and it looks like the Chief Minister is getting the better of the Governor!

There is shift in the basics and when the basics change, superstructure also faces change. In a capitalist society, production process is based on the employer and the working class. One regulates the production process, which involves investment, which is scientifically called capital. This capital is the result of surplus production, a fact discovered by Marx while he was trying to formulate the main pillar of his theory, the political economy. Surplus is produced only when the worker slogs more than what s/he gets in return as compensation for his toil. This extra is called surplus that turns into capital in a capitalist society, its life source. As the society evolves, the character of capital also blossoms up, turning into finance capital. There is merger of banking and industrial capital. There is hardly any investment. The entire concentration is on financialisation of economy.

The Modi government has laid out one more plan to “clean” the books of banks, especially public banks, by helping them get rid of Rs 2 lakh crore of loans gone ‘bad’. It has announced the creation of two institutions for the purpose. The National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL), or the “bad bank” in popular parlance, will take over the bad assets of the banks. The Indian Debt Resolution Company Ltd (IDRCL), armed with the necessary expertise, will ‘manage’ these assets and sell them at the ‘best possible’ price, to recover some of the money due to the banks. Presented as a novel method of resolving the huge bad debt problem, this exercise is nothing more than an attempt by the government to wipe its hands of a crisis its own policies created.

After the second wave of COVID-19 subsided in May, the labour market in India started showing recovery. However, within four months the recovery has started vanishing, salaried jobs diminishing, and employment generation is waning. Moreover, the data on jobs, if we don’t dive deep into it, may still seem to be promising, but in reality it conceals the alarming situation on the ground.