WHEN the Goods and Services Tax was introduced, and the states virtually gave up the power to levy indirect taxes which they had enjoyed under the constitution, the centre had solemnly promised that it would compensate them for a period of five years for any revenue shortfall arising from the shift to GST. The shortfall was to be assessed relative to what revenue should have been, assuming a 14 per cent rate of growth. It is this promise which had persuaded many states to fall in line behind the GST.

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.

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.