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Nine days after the presidential elections in Venezuela held on July 28 in which the incumbent president Nicholas Maduro won defeating the candidate of the national opposition, the far right Edmundo Gonzalez, the political situation in the oil rich South American country is still in turmoil with the western countries led by the USA refusing to accept the verdict officially announced by the government’s National Election Council. The US administration and the European Union have not recognized Maduro as the elected president. In fact US state department has said that according to them, the opposition candidate Gonzalez has won and they recognize him as the real President.

LONDON: The nuclear atrocities committed on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9 1945 took place not by accident but by intent, as the most reactionary forces in the world, led by the US, pursued their goals of domination of the Western Pacific in the post-war world.

The Thailand government is pressing ahead with its plans to legalize land-based casinos within large entertainment venues, a government spokesperson said last month. Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has reportedly asked the country’s finance ministry to draft a comprehensive bill to provide the legal foundation for casino firms to set up and run their business. The initiative is expected to make Thailand a more attractive tourism destination among foreign tourists. The spokesperson informed that Deputy Finance Minister Julapun Amornvivat will lead the preparation of the bill. As per the government estimates, integrated entertainment complexes with casinos will generate $328 million in the first year of their operations.

The sudden and sharpest cut in the import duty on gold and gold doré seems to be quite confusing since even at a 15 percent import duty on gold India’s import of the yellow metal surged nearly 30 percent amounting US$45.54 billion in the last financial year. The gold import in the previous year was valued at close to $37 billion. This year’s budget had drastically pruned the customs duty on gold by nine percent to only six percent, the lowest since June 2013. The customs duty on gold doré has been reduced to 5.35 percent from 14.35 percent.

It might be too soon to judge how well Rahul Gandhi is shaping up as the new Leader of the Opposition (LOP) in Lok Sabha. The current budget session ends in just a few days, so we'll need more time to understand his leadership fully. But he has begun well.

It is ironic that BJP which ten years back claimed itself as the party with a difference having high level of discipline is facing indiscipline and factional infighting in most of the states after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. . Since the formation of the present BJP in 1980, the party faced organizational problems on different occasions but the dimension of the crisis was never so larger as it is now after ten years of Narendra Modi’s rule.

“Middle income trap” is not an uncommon phenomenon in development experience of nations and countries. While some countries make a promising start, they tend to stagnate after a certain point. They fail to graduate from moderately devoid countries to developed countries with high per capita income.

Five years of no Article 370 is still not palatable for millions of Kashmiris. Even something as primeval as stone-pelting is sorely missed and the fact that violence has ebbed in the Valley to a point where India’s vaunted armed forces have to go to Jammu, where all the encounters with home-grown and foreign-trained terrorists have shifted, is unexciting to say the least. The Modi-led NDA government’s challenge is to hold elections in Jammu & Kashmir before the September 30 deadline set by the Supreme Court.

G20 declaration on addressing global labour market challenges and promoting decent work fell short of the expectation, which perhaps prompted the Director General of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Gilbert F Houngbo to urge G20 Labour and Employment Ministers to take decisive actions to reduce inequalities, promote gender equality, and encourage diversity in the workplace.

The record disbursal of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) profits to the government of India in May 2024 has been in the news. The magnitude of the disbursal caught everyone by surprise. There is a fair bit of confusion as well since many in the mainstream media are trying to paint this move by the RBI in a positive light. In fact, the move raises a host of matters of principle.