ON November 30, the Central Statistical Office (CSO) came out with quarterly estimates of GDP for the second quarter (June to September) of 2017. Predictably, analysts and spokespersons of the government spent the evening in newsrooms of various TV channels celebrating what they claimed was a sign of revival of the economy. Next morning, revival of economy was the front page news in almost every newspaper. If there was any adverse impact of demonetisation and GST, it was claimed, here was the evidence that such an impact was only short-term and had started to wane.

CITU general secretary and parliamentarian Tapan Sen has written to Union Labour and Employment Minister Santosh Gangwar, seeking his intervention to stop the proposed reorganisation of the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) through merger of sub-regional offices in different states. In a letter on November 30, Sen said that such a move would lead to “immense and unmanageable difficulties for insured persons to have their lawful benefit denied by lower-level offices/establishments”. It is surprising that the ESIC management has proposed to shut 18 of the 39 sub-regional offices (

IN the long awaited bypoll to the R K Nagar assembly constituency to be held on December 21, the Tamil Nadu state committee of the CPI(M) has decided not to be in the fray but to support DMK from its own platform in order to defeat AIADMK and to expose the nefarious designs of the BJP in the state.A year ago, the AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha died after 75 days long hospitalisation and since then the events unfolding in Tamil Nadu shows how her ministerial colleagues and close friends are running helter skelter to save their skins by toeing the BJP diktats thereby sacrificing all the long held

THE finance minister held Pre-budget 2018 discussion with the representatives of central trade unions on December 5, 2017. Representatives of all the central trade unions attended the meeting. CITU was represented by its president, Hemalata.The meeting, as every year, appeared to be not more than a ritual. The ‘consultative meeting’ with the 12 trade unions that were called, lasted for around one hour. The trade union representatives were requested to give their opinions in 3-4 minutes.

THE six-year devastating Syrian war is reaching a conclusive stage. The eighth-round of UN-mediated talks between the government of Syria and the opposition that began in Geneva on November 28, signify a decisive phase in the nearly six years of Syrian War. These talks are to continue till December 15 and widely expected to bring the curtains down on the war that had led to the killing of over 3,30,000 citizens and the displacement of millions of people.