LAST week, we had written on the rise of lynch mobs, the spreading of hate and false rumours through social media, and the complicity of the government. This week I will look at a particular feature of the WhatsApp platform that helps in spreading hate, and why the BJP government is not asking them to change this feature.At the heart of the problem with WhatsApp, which is now owned by Facebook, is the feature that anybody’s mobile number can be put in a WhatsApp group, even without the consent of the owner.

KERALA has received international recognition for its effective prevention measures against Nipah virus outbreak. The Institute of Human Virology in Baltimore honoured Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Health Minister K K Shylaja for the government’s efforts in curbing the outbreak.Noted bio-medical scientist and co-founder of the institute Dr Robert C Gallo presented awards to the chief minister and the health minister.Dr Robert Gallo, who was part of the scientific team that discovered the HIV, along with other scientists in the institute held talks with the Kerala delegation.

MUCH has been written by now exposing the fraudulence of the government’s claims of a “historic” rise in the minimum support price for kharif crops. It has been pointed out for instance that while the Swaminathan Committee had recommended that the MSP should be fixed at 50 percent above the cost of production C2 which includes rental on own land, a recommendation that the BJP  in its 2014 election manifesto had promised to implement, the current MSP still falls way below that level.

MORE than a year since the government failed to implement minimum wages in Delhi, members of eleven trade unions including major ones like CITU, AITUC and INTUC have decided to go on strike on July 20 pressing for their demands. A formal notice was given to the chief minister and the lieutenant governor of Delhi on June 27.While the minimum wage of workers in Delhi is declared to be Rs 13,896 by the government on March 3, 2017, it has not been implemented yet. Most of the workers are denied minimum wage even as they are forced to work for more than 12 hours a day.