THE Union Budget 2017-18 presented by the finance minister on February 1 in parliament is totally disappointing and deceptive in many respects. CITU’S RESPONSE TO THE BUDGETThe Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), in a statement issued on February 1, has noted that the  finance minister, in his budget speech, boastfully mentioned about doing away with the classification of plan and non-plan expenditure, putting the entire expenditure in one basket.

THE 24th general conference of the All India Insurance Employees’ Association (AIIEA) was held in the city of Kochi which is called ‘Queen of the Arabian Sea’ from January 21-25 2017.  For the first time in the history of AIIEA, an all India conference of the organisation was held in the state of Kerala.  The conference proceedings started with a mammoth rally in which around 6000 employees participated.  The rally which started from Rajendra Maidan was flagged off by C Ravindranathan, former vice president of AIIEA.   The rally was led by “Panchavadyam” and this was followed by 24 women co

THE first ten days of the Trump presidency in the United States, if it has proved anything, it is that Trump will remain faithful to the promises he made during the election campaign. Donald Trump has issued a flurry of executive orders which exemplify his anti-immigrant, Islamophobic and pro-big business agenda.One of the first executive orders was to build a wall along the border with Mexico. This, according to Trump, is required to keep out illegal migrants.

THE election of Rodrigo Duterte to the Philippine presidency could mean the realisation of America's worst nightmare in the region coming true. The Philippines is the lynchpin of the Obama administration's military “pivot to the East”, aimed at militarily encircling China. Now within a few months after being sworn in as president, Duterte is threatening to upset the American applecart by not only cosying up to China but also threatening political and military “separation” from the United States. Philippines is America's oldest military ally in the region.

GIVEN the republican thrust of the Indian constitution, the above title might look quite anachronistic to some. This is because Indian constitution does not allow for such a reading as its republican character eliminates the need for hierarchical or parallel conception of sovereignty. The republican character of the Indian constitution makes people uniformly sovereign thus ruling out any competing conception of sovereignty.