Editorial

Manipur: Abdication of Responsibility

IT is sixteen months since the ethnic conflict erupted in Manipur.  Over 250 people have been killed and many more injured during the violence and 60,000 people remained displaced and living as refugees. The central government and the BJP state government have abjectly failed to address the basic issues, which led to the conflict and allowed the situation to develop where there has been a hardening of the ethnic divide.

Assam: A Chief Minister Unfit for Office

THE situation in Assam has steadily deteriorated due to growing tensions between communities and certain incidents being used to divide people on communal and chauvinistic lines.  The chief minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, and the BJP-led government are solely responsible for the current state of affairs. Himanta Biswa Sarma has crossed all limits in his Muslim baiting campaign and his divisive rhetoric of ‘indigenous versus outsiders’.

A Lacklustre Speech

THE eleventh Independence Day Red Fort address of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was his longest so far and it was the most disappointing by his own standards. The bulk of the speech was a litany of achievements of his government beginning from Swachh Bharat to Jal Jeevan Mission to renewable energy and reforms which also included the strengthening of the banking sector.  All these were encapsulated with a vague talk of a `Viksit Bharat’ by 2047.Some of the claims made about the achievements have no basis in reality.  For instance, on renewable energy, he c

SEBI Chief Compromised

THE latest revelations by the US based firm Hindenburg Research have raised serious questions about the role of SEBI chief Madhabi Puri Buch as chief of the regulatory body investigating the Adani group’s various contraventions of the law and manipulation of stock prices.According to the Hindenburg report, the SEBI chairperson Buch had invested funds in 2015 in an offshore fund, “Global Dynamic Opportunities Fund”.  Her investment in the fund was transferred to her husband in 2017 before Buch joined as a whole time member of SEBI.  In 2018, the investment was redeemed through an email sent

Upheaval in Bangladesh

THE mass revolt against the authoritarian government of Sheikh Hasina Wazed has had a dramatic outcome with the fall of the government and Sheikh Hasina fleeing the country.  On Monday (August 5), the `March to Dhaka’ called by the student protestors saw tens of thousands of people reaching the city and marching to the prime minister’s residence.

Why No Census?

THE decadal census, which was due in 2021, has not been held so far. In the union budget 2024-25, no substantial provision has been made for conducting the census. The centre has also not extended the deadline of June 2024 to freeze administrative boundaries which are necessary to conduct the census as per the administrative boundaries like districts, taluk, block or village levels.So the 2021 census, which should have begun in 2020, is indefinitely delayed.

Pro-Corporate Fraudulent Employment Schemes

THE Indian economy is at a critical cross-road, where the GDP growth is in no way boosting the employment generation capacity. Even within the jobs created, 57.3 per cent are self-employed, 18.3 per cent are unpaid household workers and more than 45 per cent are employed in agriculture. The Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme launched in March 2020 has utterly failed to generate employment in manufacturing and strikingly India’s year-on-year manufacturing productivity has fallen by 2.38 per cent in 2022-23.

US Won’t Tolerate Strategic Autonomy

PRIME Minister Modi’s two-day visit to Moscow on July 9-10 saw the revival of the annual summit meetings between the leaders of India and Russia. The last summit had been held in 2021 when President Putin visited Delhi. The visit has resulted in further strengthening the strategic partnership between India and Russia.The joint vision statement issued after the talks focuses more on economic cooperation and trade unlike earlier meetings. The decision to increase trade to 100 billion dollars by 2030 was announced.

French Elections – Left Success in Halting the Far Right

PEOPLE of France have voted against the far-right in the parliamentary elections. Contrary to many opinion polls, the National Rally of Le Pen could win only 143 seats and stood third. The newly formed Left coalition, New Popular Front achieved a victory by emerging as the largest bloc with182 seats, while President Macron’s group Ensemble won 163 seats. As a result of this fractured mandate, no single party or Front secured an outright majority. For a majority, one needs to win 289 in the 577-seat National Assembly. The New Popular Front fell short of majority by over 100 seats.

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