DIFFERENT studies conducted by UNICEF, at different times, during the last two years after the breakout of the pandemic, have shown over and over again that reading, writing and arithmetic skills of children are being severely disadvantaged because of prolonged closure of schools, and this was adversely affecting their path to progress.

CAPITALIST governments invariably seek to control inflation by enlarging unemployment. This has nothing to do with any belief in a stable “trade-off” between the two, namely in a stable curve that links the two. Even those who attribute inflation to other causes, such as excessive money supply (“too much money chasing too few goods”) and find the solution to it in monetary stringency, are in effect seeking to control it through larger unemployment, since monetary stringency causes larger unemployment.This raises many questions. The first question is: why is this so?

ON January 27, 2022, the Hebrew-language news site Walla published part of the text from a telegram sent by Amir Weissbrod – who is part of the Israeli foreign ministry – to Israeli embassies around the world. The telegram warned the Israeli diplomats that in the upcoming 49th regular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which is expected to begin on February 28, a report will be tabled regarding Israel’s 2021 bombing of Gaza.

SHAKY GROWTH ESTIMATESTHE pretext of the budget 2022-23 is an economic scenario that seems to be slowly returning back to normalcy from the wounds of the COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted business as usual for more than a year causing huge income and job loss for the vast majority of the people. From a contraction of 7.3 per cent in the previous financial year, the economy records a positive growth of 9.2 per cent in the current year (2021-2022) as estimated by the National Statistical Office in its first advance estimates.

THE image of the young girls, clad in Hijab standing outside the school gate, demanding and at times even begging to enter inside their own school is a metaphor for how the Indian State under Modi is treating people whom they consider as “other”, an absolute denial of fundamental rights.