VIRTUALLY on the last day of the budget session of parliament while it was in turmoil, the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) tabled its Report No.20 of 2019, which is a review of the defence offsets policy all the way from its inception in 2005 till the present time. While a summary statement was released by CAG to the press, the detailed report has unfortunately not been posted on either the CAG website or on the websites of either house, restricting access of the public to this important report and the information contained in it.

SPEAKING in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha on September 15-16, Dr Harsh Vardhan, union health minister made a number of self-congratulatory claims regarding the “success” of the government’s lockdown and its Covid-19 policies. What was striking about his claims is its ostrich-like refusal to address the current reality of surging Covid-19 cases. He completely ducked the question why after a “successful” lockdown, India has currently the highest number of daily new cases, and is on course by October to overtake the US, the worst performing country in the world.

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.

IN the United States of America, Trump administration has given a 90-day deadline to ByteDance, its Chinese owner, to sell its assets to a US company or shut shop. Microsoft, Oracle and a group including Twitter, are in negotiations with ByteDance for buying TikTok’s US business that also includes Canada, Australia and New Zealand.  ByteDance is valued between $100-200 billion, with its US business alone estimated to be in the range of $20-50 billion.