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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.

Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut is not known for his oratory. But his one-liners have been straight to the point and often controversial, at times without any justification. But on many occasions his comments were noted for the insight these provided to behind the scene activities. Recently, he said the relationship between Shiv Sena and BJP was not like ‘India-Pakistan’, but rather like the one between Bollywood power couple Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao, who recently announced their separation, although they said they would continue to collaborate at the professional level.

With additional charge of the ‘Cooperation Ministry’ given to Home Minister Amit Shah, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has identified ‘Political Enemy No.1’ – NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, who has been anchoring efforts to cobble up a viable and winning political alternative to the Modi-Shah BJP juggernaut, which saw near total annihilation in the West Bengal assembly polls even as the 2nd Covid wave drowned Modi’s international standing in record volumes of covid-infested Ganga Jal.

New Delhi: Medal contender PV Sindhu feels that she has received a good draw at the Tokyo Games but opined that this is the Olympics and it is not going to be easy.

In the pre-dawn hours of July 7, the president-turned-dictator of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, was gunned down in his home by assassins. Two men now make duelling claims to be prime minister—and thus head of government. Many Haiti observers warn the stage may be set for the U.S. to resume its long history of intervening in the country’s internal affairs. It all adds up to more chaos and suffering for the people of Haiti, whose fate has for generations been subject to the whims of imperial powers and local comprador elites.

The objectives of the Indian criminal justice include penalizing, reforming, and rehabilitating the offender. Reformation is its ultimate goal, as the system professes to be more rehabilitative than retributive.

As we dealt with the nightmarish second wave of Covid-19, the trauma of workers stranded in our cities last year without food, water, work or shelter quietly faded from public memory. One year later, the 29 June order of the Supreme Court brought back memories of those gut-wrenching times.