TWO news items about India have figured prominently, one a nearly 24 per cent drop in India’s GDP  the previous quarter and the other that India has taken over as the new epicentre of the global pandemic with its figures for new cases crossing even the US numbers. The 24 per cent drop in GDP for the second quarter is the biggest drop of any major economy in the world for a quarter. The comparable US figures are 9.5 per cent and Japan’s 7.6 per cent drop in the same quarter.

THE US has been fighting Taliban for the last 19-years at a cost of more than $2 trillion. However, President Donald Trump believes that the Taliban might be America’s newfound ally in South Asia in bringing back peace to war-torn Afghanistan.

COMRADES all across West Bengal paid tribute to the martyrs of the 1959 Food Movement in Bengal by hoisting the Party flag, offering flowers at their memorial and delivering speeches.

The historic movement was constituted by thousands of farmers and workers of mills and common men who came forward on the streets, demanding the right to food, owing to the artificial scarcity of rice created by a nexus between the state government and landlords, rich peasants, rice mill owners, and traders.

THE refusal by the central government to pay the Goods and Services Tax (GST) compensation due to the states is patently illegal and violative of the constitutional scheme regarding relations between the centre and the states. The finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, announced in the GST council meeting held on August 27 that the central government was unable to pay the compensation amount to the states in 2020-21 as there was a big shortfall in the compensation cess collected and the revenue accruing to the government.

THE DYFI has raised an amount of Rs 10,95,86,537 for  the chief minister’s disaster relief fund(CMDRF)  by collecting scrap, reselling garbage for recycling, and doing different kinds of jobs. Even as the first Coronavirus cases surfaced in Kerala and the state government stepped up its defence, Kerala’s young people were at the forefront of the efforts. The DYFI-led campaign ‘Njangalund’ (we are here), which was started to provide assistance to the needy during the lockdown, is still on.