Why Lokpal’s Reports Haven’t Reached Parliament in 3 Years? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eku62nHfzoM Shristi Jaiswal The Wire Jan 21, 2026 Lokpal was created as an independent watchdog to fight corruption at the highest levels of power, but serious questions are now being raised about its autonomy. In this video, The Wire’s Shruti Sharma speaks to journalist Srishti Jaswal, the author of an investigative report that reveals that Lokpal’s annual reports have not been tabled in Parliament for the last three years. The discussion explores why these reports were delayed, where the system is breaking down, and what this means for transparency and democratic accountability. Does this failure point to a deeper problem with Lokpal’s independence? Watch the full conversation.

 https://thewire.in/government/why-lokpal-annual-reports-havent-been-tabled-in-parliament-for-three-years  “Since appointment for presentation of Annual Report for the Year 2022-23 and Year 2023-24 and also for the year 2024-25 did not materialize in spite of best possible efforts, it was decided by the Full Bench of Lokpal (Chairperson and six Members) to present both the Annual Reports (combined for 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 and another for 2024-2025), with a forwarding letter and a letter of the Chairperson to the Hon’ble President of India.” (sic)

The principles of market economy – fair play, voluntary exchange and limited government interference – lie squashed today as we witness the elites of the world take over the reins of economic and political structures with tariffs, sanctions, ‘deals’ and outright resource grab wars.https://thewire.in/economy/worlds-elite-trump-greenland-venezuela-davos 

The latest geopolitical ongoing; the assault on Venezuela, Trump’s threats of seizing Greenland, the controversial ‘Board of Peace’ plan for Gaza, all show that it is time for another round of resource grab. In fact, resource grab is the central principle of capitalism. 

Every sane person knows the real motive behind the political turmoil in Venezuela was oil.

With high national debt, rising consumer debt, inflation and inequality, the US economy is facing significant challenges at home. It needs more resources to stay afloat. It needs to maintain its petrodollar hegemony to stay on the top. For the unaware, the US dollar is deeply linked with oil money. In the early 1970s, the US signed a contract with Saudi Arabia that all oil trade payments must be done in dollars. That forces countries to maintain a balance of dollars in their forex accounts. But today, the world has shifted. BRICS countries hold over 40% of the world GDP. An estimate says about 20% of global oil trade is already happening in other currencies, Euros, Chinese yuan, rubles and even digital payment systems. And this was exactly the crime of Venezuela. It had started to accept payments for its crude oil in yuan and other currencies. Trump’s outbursts on Truth Social clearly show how much a talk of this de-linking of dollar from oil trade ruffles them. 

A study published in Lancet looked at the impact of US sanctions on 152 countries between 1971 and 2021. It estimated that about 600,000 deaths occurred each year in these 50 years in these countries as a direct and indirect result of US sanctions. The scale of this data is horrifying. Between 1971 and 2021, US sanctions have caused about 3 crore deaths in 152 countries.

In this new vision, the US refuses to acknowledge the sovereignty of other nations. Either they work as extended colonies of the US, or they face its ire.

What’s appalling is these are not even the legitimate interests of a nation, but of a few elite corporations. Perhaps that is why a real-estate man like Trump is their best bet to make the best deals. 

Obviously, the rich gathered in Davos are not going to call out the systems that benefit them; instead we are going to see more false propaganda that educates us all that this is the best possible system in the history of humanity. And so, the principles of market economy – fair play, voluntary exchange and limited government interference lie squashed in the process. The inherent contradictions of capitalism are now glaringly exposed. Do we need more evidence of advancing neo-imperialism? 

by Kavita Kabeer

21/01/2026

Is EPFO the reason your employer isn’t depositing your provident fund? https://the-ken.com/story/epf-defaults-are-off-the-charts-blame-the-epfo/ the EPFO steadily dismantled the systems meant to spot defaults. Internal systems that once flagged defaulters were scrapped, and local offices say even obvious signals like payments slowing then stopping were routinely ignored... The fix was supposed to be technology. Essentially, big data and smarter systems. Much of that tech either doesn’t exist or work, or sits behind opaque processes that field officers can’t actually use.

While some regional PF offices sporadically release names of defaulters, the EPFO does not publish a comprehensive list with the names and amounts in default. But the scale of the problem can be gauged from the “arrears management” section in its annual reports.

Between March 2019 and March 2023, the arrears by employers ballooned over 70% to over Rs 15,000 crore (over $1.6 billion). And in the next one year, it had increased another 70% to almost Rs 26,000 crore. Nearly Rs 10,000 crore of that is thanks to about 2,400 employers, each of whom had arrears of Rs 50 lakh or...

Naturally, there’s a vacuum. Nearly 70% of establishments registered with EPFO are now classified as non-contributory, up from roughly half five years ago. Some may fall outside the law. Many don’t. So, employees usually find out only when they try to withdraw their money, or when their families have to.

A fire at a Goa nightclub recently made all of this impossible to ignore. Twenty workers died, but EPFO officers later admitted they would struggle to secure provident fund, pension, and insurance benefits for the families because the employer had been defaulting for years without detection.

Anand’s story today traces how a drive to end the inspector raj hollowed out enforcement without a working replacement, and how amnesty schemes with token penalties reshaped incentives. It also sits alongside our earlier reporting on EPFO’s other failings, from masked inefficiencies dressed up as high returns to a long-simmering crisis of claim rejections.