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India’s flagship Employment Linked Incentive (ELI) scheme announced in the Union Budget 2024-25 for decent job creation in the country did not take off even in mid-December 2024. Union Ministry of Finance is busy in making next Union Budget 2025-26, which will be tabled on February 1, 2025. India Inc is hesitant in joining the scheme, and Union Ministry of Labour and Employment is also not ready with the details of the scheme, which are likely to be notified in January 2025.

It was former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju who a month ago raised an alarm about former CJI Chandrachud’s role in unleashing the controversy surrounding the Places of Worship Act, 1991, which has manifested in the form multiple demands for the survey of mosques, claimed to have been built on destroyed temple4 sites. He had warned that the ex-CJI’s remarks would open the floodgates for litigations, which literally happened in the days that followed. The problem assumed such alarming proportions that the Supreme Court had to order a bar on acceptance of new civil suits or issuance of new orders in pending cases.

Halt all fresh suits, proceedings, and orders in relation to the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991, ordered a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court of India on December 12, implications of which will be far reaching since it would transcend beyond the legal boundaries to the social and political life of the people of the country. The order has kindled a new hope of survival of secularism in its battle with communalism being attacked socially, politically, and legally by the Hindutva forces, though the Places of Worship Act has a bar against raising such issues.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There is absolutely no let-up in the Union Government’s attempts to deny funds Kerala is entitled to despite judicial raps.

Maharashtra’s Mahayuti, the ruling NDA in the state, is still struggling to overcome a deep political trouble from within. The most serious political development is that Shiv Sena believes BJP and NCP are hand in glove in clipping the wings of their party and leader Eknath Shinde. It is a serious concern for the BJP leadership, since many political leaders believe that BJP is pursuing downsizing its allies one by one to go ahead with its dream of ‘one nation, one party’ approach in the long run.

The BJP is in hurry to appoint a new national president by December end. Electoral process for the election of the new president is underway. But the contentious issue whose candidate, either of the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat or of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will eventually occupy the office is still shrouded in the mystery. October meeting of the RSS national executive and later interaction of Bhagwat with some senior BJP leaders and also chief minister of UP, Yogi Adityanath had certainly turned the saffron ecosystem optimist of an agreement between the two before the year is out.

Finally, the cat is out of the bag and hopping mad on the hot tin roof! Techie Atul Subhash, 34, strung himself up like a ceiling fan and left a placard with the three words ‘Justice Is Due’. Atul Subhash also left a 24-page suicide note and an audio-video explanation on why he killed himself and who abetted the suicide, bringing into focus the female-male divide into sharp focus? Nobody assisted Subhash in placing the noose around his neck, but he did affirm that his estranged wife and her relatives drove him to suicide. There was massive inducement and a big fat release.

Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal has refused an alliance with Congress in the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections. It assumes significance on two counts. It marks a turning point in the political landscape of the national Capital. It underscores AAP's confidence in its political dominance. But it reveals a challenge to the unity in the Opposition against the BJP-led NDA dispensation. The BJP will always like to be faced with a fractured Opposition than a united one.

It was a huge pile of debris left on the ground where Babri Masjid, with its undeniable grandeur, stood. Space was slowly emptied, leaving behind a vast loneliness, desolate and wet. Nothing remained the same. It was not only an attack on a mosque, it injured our inheritance, inclusivity. Almost half of us lost the expanse that we had built up since centuries. Those responsible stand today merged with state, with majoritarian support. Whosoever stood up in search of justice, got lost in a crowd. Their defence became spontaneously defiance as once Maulana Abul Kalam Azad had said when he was falsely accused of sedition by British imperialism and was taken to the dock. He had told the court that it was only in battlefields and in court rooms, that greatest acts of injustice in the history generally have taken place.

On December 9 Monday, Indian foreign secretary held crucial talks in Dhaka with his Bangladesh counterpart as also the head of interim government Dr. Muhammad Yunus to find some ways for improving the bilateral relations in the wake of reports of attacks on Hindus by the communal elements of the country. The discussions were the first at the high level between the two countries in the Bangladesh capital with no breakthrough in sight though both expressed their desire to continue the dialogue.