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.

PMCARES, a private trust fund created by the prime minister, right since the inception is in strong criticism not just by the opposition parties but by all those who believe in transparency of public funds. Nobody knew for what and how will this money be utilised, which quintessentially was supposed to be spent to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic in India. Humongous amount was generated under this fund and a lot of money was collected through coercion by virtually forcing the government employees including the medics to shed a part of their salary.

Below we publish the statement issued by the Central Trade Unions – INTUC, AITUC, HMS, CITU, AIUTUC, TUCC, SEWA, AICCTU, LPF and UTUC – on August 25

THERE is a commonly-held view that the current crisis in capitalism, which has resulted in a massive output contraction and increase in unemployment, is because of the pandemic; and that once the pandemic gets over, things will go back to “normal”.