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Prime Minister Narendra Modi often shrugs off the criticism that the rich have become richer and the poor poorer under his government as political grandstanding by opponents. But every new piece of information that is emerging on various aspects of the economy, particularly relating to money and investment, suggests that the devastation caused by the Covid pandemic, mostly due to mismanagement and the faulty policies of the government, has sidestepped the rich, who continue to flourish under the Modi dispensation. It is one thing for Modi to keep harping on his rural initiatives, expressed in all sorts of acronyms combining the fancy PM adjunct, but the real hard fact is that his policies have benefited the rich most and if anything the poor has become worse off.

The meeting of 19 opposition parties hosted by the Congress President Sonia Gandhi on August 20 is a good beginning for building a joint front of the opposition to take on the BJP led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The discussions were focused and the message which was conveyed was that only by such a broad based unity of the anti-BJP forces, the saffrons can be challenged in the coming Lok Sabha poll, 32 months later.

New Delhi: The upcoming sports university in Meerut will be named after Hockey wizard Major Dhyan Chand.

Chennai: The seasoned Jagan Kumar of TVS Racing began the defence of his title in the premium Pro-Stock 165cc Open category by clinching the pole position as the Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship at the MMRT, here on Friday.

New Delhi: A 51-member strong boxing squad will represent India at the ASBC Asian Youth & Junior Boxing Championships scheduled in Dubai from August 20 to 31.

All the newspapers and television news programs right now are filled with stories about the dark future hanging over Afghan women and girls as the Taliban retakes control of their country. The Guardian late last week featured an article by an unnamed Afghan woman who said she is now hiding the two university degrees she earned, searching for a burqa to cover every inch of herself as the women-hating fundamentalists of the Taliban close in.

With the capture of Kabul by the Taliban, Afghanistan has descended into chaos. Horrific visuals of ordinary Afghanis storming the capital’s airport and clinging on to airlines and military transport, in a desperate attempt to flee the repressive regime, have been streamed the world over. There is a well-founded fear, particularly amongst minorities, women, local staff of foreign coalition forces, journalists and academics, of persecution at the hands of the new regime.

With the blessings of RBI and as per its guidelines, Secondary Market for trading of Corporate Loans and debt trading is being created. As per report available, 10 top Banks that include 4 PSBs, 4 Private Sector Banks and 2 Foreign Banks have come together and formed an Association named Secondary Loan Market Association to begin Corporate Loan trading. To start with, such online platform will create the secondary market for trading of corporate loan within the Banks under the Association or sale to ARC. Our Union Bank is yet to become a member of the Association and will become in due course after seeing the functioning of such arrangements. Other Banks will also join as the setup will be too luring.

President Lopez Obrador of Mexico in his inaugural speech itself had called neoliberalism a “disaster” and a “calamity”. The Leftist political party, MORENA, to which he belongs, had stated in its programme: “The global economic crisis has revealed the failure of the neoliberal model. The economic policy imposed by the international financial organisations leads to the fact that Mexico is one of the countries with the slowest growth.”MORENA’s programme had proposed instead that the “State should assume responsibility to lead development without foreign interference”.

Initially, it was thought that the ruling BJP led National Democratic Alliance would easily win the state assembly polls in Assam held this year. Many considered that Congress wasn’t that strong enough to challenge the BJP led NDA. However, the grand old party decided to ally with its once arch-rival Badruddin Ajmal led All India United Democratic Front to form the Grand Alliance, which also consisted of small parties including the three Communist parties. As the campaign went on, the Grand Alliance started gaining steam and this led to a section of political analysts seeing a chance of a surprise victory of the Congress-led alliance. That didn’t happen. The ruling BJP led NDA, as most expected, emerged victorious for the second time.