Top Stories
Delhi’s Garbage Mess is Latest Political Battleground
11,000 sanitation workers in Delhi may have called off their 12-day long agitation, but the possibility of future strikes still haunts the municipal corporations in the capital, as rival political parties are using the garbage mess to score political brownie points. Meanwhile, Delhi Pradesh Safai Mazdoor Union president Rajendra Mewati claimed the strike had been called off by only one workers’ union and the other 17 would continue the agitation. read more
Reform 09: Labour Laws to be Relaxed
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is preparing to overhaul India’s tough labour laws in a bid to create millions of manufacturing jobs. According to Reuters, the Labour Ministry is drafting a bill for the upcoming parliamentary session that proposes to loosen strict hire-and-fire rules and make it tougher for workers to form unions. read more
Reset in India-Bangladesh Ties
India and Bangladesh signed a land boundary agreement on Saturday, completing four decades of negotiations between the two neighbours. With the land question out of the way, it was back to business, with India announcing a $2 billion new credit line to Bangladesh and $4.5 billion of investments in power. read more
Monsoon Arrives in Kerala, SkyMet Rejects Drought Fears
The monsoon rains finally reached the Kerala coast on Friday, five days later than expected. But the country's private weather forecaster Skymet rejected the meteorological office’s projections of a drought, claiming that the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) phenomenon counters any El Nino weather event. read more
RBI Cuts Rates Again, But Does It Matter?
As widely expected, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut interest rates for a third time this year on Tuesday, taking advantage of subdued inflation to support growth in the economy. But ASSOCHAM said the quarter point reduction in the repo rate to 7.25 percent was too little and too late to boost consumer demand. read more
AFSPA Repealed in Tripura, Could Other Northeast States Follow?
The northeastern state of Tripura became the first one to repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), that had given the military shoot-to-kill powers and shielded soldiers from prosecution since 1997. Tripura’s repeal of AFSPA could set a precedent for neighbouring states to wean themselves off this controversial law. read more
One Rank One Pension Generates Political Heat
The One Rank One Pension scheme for the armed forces is expected to be cleared by the government, but the delay is keeping the country’s 2.5 million veterans on tenderhooks. OROP is expected to cost a whopping Rs. 8,300 crore ($1.3 billion) annually, which is why earlier administrations had opposed the scheme as being financially unfeasible. read more
Gujjars Try Politics of Reservation, Again
The Gujjar community has once again launched an agitation for reservation in government jobs, blocking train tracks and key roads in Rajasthan. Gujjar leader Col Kirori Singh Bainsla asked community members to “fight to the finish”, in a familiar demand to extract quotas from the state government. read more
Modi Takes Diplomacy to China’s Backyard
Prime Minister Narendra Modi used his first visit to China to expand his diplomatic push into China’s own backyard, with visits to Mongolia and South Korea. It was the first time an Indian prime minister had ever visited Mongolia, while in South Korea Modi called for more investment in Indian infrastructure. The prime minister also proposed deepening India’s defence cooperation with both Mongolia and South Korea. read more
Less Than Half of India’s Quake Sensors are Working
The ministry of earth sciences admitted on Tuesday that only 40 of the 100 ground motion detectors it checked so far are in working condition. This follows media reports that the country’s network of 293 sensors failed to record the April 25 earthquake in Nepal because these were not maintained properly. read more
GST in Sight, But Rajya Sabha Hurdle Remains
The goods and services tax (GST) took one step closer to reality on Wednesday, when the Lok Sabha passed a bill to bring in the single nationwide sales tax. This tax reform has been hailed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley as the biggest in India since independence. He has said it could add up to 2 percentage points to the growth of the economy. But the bill still has to pass the Rajya Sabha where the NDA does not have a majority. read more
Kejriwal Targets Media, Threatens “Public Trials”
The Delhi government has begun monitoring news channels – for the first time ever – following Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s rant against the media. After accusing TV channels of being part of a “conspiracy to finish off AAP”, Kejriwal has asked officials to monitor the content broadcast by them. His government is also reportedly looking into the tax records and wage details of news organisations.
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Indian Media Faces Backlash in Nepal for Earthquake Coverage
The Indian government’s prompt aid and rescue operations may have been praised in Nepal, but the Indian media is being criticized there for its “insensitive” coverage of the April 25 earthquake. #GoHomeIndianMedia is reportedly the top trending Twitter hashtag in Nepal, with complaints that the Indian media was treating the disaster as a “public relations exercise” for the Indian government. read more
Gujarati Villagers Sue World Bank Arm in US Court
For the first time ever, a local community affected by a World Bank project has filed a lawsuit in a United States court. Fishermen and farmers in Gujarat are suing the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private lending arm of the World Bank, for providing a loan for the Tata Mundra coal-fired power plant. It’s not clear, however, why the litigants have not first sued the project itself in an Indian court. read more
All Drug Prices Should Be Capped, Says Parliamentary Committee
A parliamentary committee has recommended that price caps should be extended to all drugs sold in India. Just 12 per cent are currently under price caps, including 348 drugs classified as essential medicines. But price caps have hit drugmakers and are opposed by many in the industry, who say drug prices in India are already among the lowest in the world. read more
The Prince Is Back, and Playing An Old Tune
Rahul Gandhi is back in Delhi after his controversial 2-month disappearance, but he is still playing an old tune. There were hopes in the Congress party that its vice president would bring fresh ideas back with him from Thailand, but no, he has stuck to his family’s signature’s tune: the Congress is the saviour of the farmers and the poor. What Rahul forgot to mention is that farmers are still committing suicide after half a century of Congress rule. read more