https://aifap.org.in/  https://aifap.org.in/10271/ Tata and Adani are two big companies involved in electricity supply in Mumbai. In the tariff proposal filed on 29 January, Tata has increased the tariff for extremely poor consumers consuming up to 100 units to ₹7.37 per unit from the existing ₹3.74 per unit and to poor consumers consuming 101 units to 300 units, it has been proposed to increase the price from Rs. 5.89 per unit to Rs. 9.31 per unit.

The Working Poor | The Price of the American Dream | ENDEVR Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGzzWBbg40U Since the economic crisis of 2009, over nine million jobs have been created in America. Officially, the recession is over. But American workers have come out of the crisis more vulnerable and even poorer than ever. 46.7 million Americans live in poverty with around 15% of the US population living below the poverty line. But they aren’t unemployed – most of them have at least two jobs. They’re ‘the working poor’. Meet the people behind America’s economic recovery.

The Broken American Dream | Hard Earned | ENDEVR Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3dj2v0m1bQ  Hilton juggles two full-time jobs, and returns home at night to the one-car garage he calls home in the heart of Silicon Valley. Jose and Elizabeth try to qualify for a mortgage, Emilia reveals a troubling part of her past, and DJ and Takita try to start over in a new neighbourhood.

• The Fading Dream of Retirement | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWLlyQb-tp0&t=0s

Hard Earned is a documentary series that puts aside economic debates and follows five families around the country to find out what it takes to get by on $8, $10 or $15 an hour. The series turns an intimate lens on this group of 21st century American dreamers as they fight against all odds to thrive when it takes everything they have to simply survive. Characters represent geographically and ethnically diverse multigenerational Americans.

"Centre Has Been Shortchanging States by Sharing Much Less that 42% of Taxes as Mandated" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnqijYzitPs  Jayato Ghosh The Wire empowerement vs entitlement. Right based  vs gifts from PM? no pick up in private investment?

The key takeaways with Faye D’Souza | Jayati Ghosh | Mritiunjoy Mohanty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imtWg2iIUVc Faye D'Souza

An Exclusive Session With Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS8Og78iI5M Thrust on captial expenditure?

Government Stabilizes Economy, Finds 'Sweet Spot' On Road To Recovery? | Rajdeep Sardesai https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDWUpbz5xcc India Today Business Today the government believes that the economy is in a 'sweet spot', poised for recovery. The transcript also includes a comparison of the Indian economy with other economies worldwide. Based on the IMF Global Macroeconomic Outlook, India outpaces large economies in sheer growth, contributing to 16% of global growth in the current fiscal year

A district judge in Varanasi on Wednesday (January 31) – his last working day before retirement – allowed Hindus to worship inside a sealed basement of the the Mughal-era Gyanvapi Masjid in a decision that could have far-reaching consequences in the Gyanvapi Masjid-Kashi Vishwanath Temple legal matter that is being heard in courts at all three levels of the judiciary. https://thewire.in/religion/judge-hands-over-gyanvapi-basement-to-hindus 

Now, Hindu priests and Hindu devotees visiting the Kashi Vishwanath Temple would also get access to visit and perform puja inside the tehkhana of the mosque.

by Omar Rashid

01/02/2024

The BJP has successfully leveraged Ram Mandir to effect a fundamental restructuring of Hinduism, which has no ecclesiastical order, absolutist establishment, governing organisation, or binding holy book. All of this could change. https://thewire.in/religion/reading-into-bjp-rsss-structural-assault-on-hinduism-and-the-advent-of-hindu-vatican 

Firstly, the BJP is leveraging the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra to effect a fundamental restructuring of Hinduism. Currently, Hinduism has no ecclesiastical order, absolutist establishment, governing organisation, or binding holy book. It has many sampradayas (traditions), which consist of monastic orders of the Vaishnava or Shaiva traditions, which have their own akharas, ashrams and mutts. Then there are countless temples and temple trusts, the most prominent being the chaar dhams (four ancient pilgrimage sites) and the 12 jyotirlingas (revered shrines dedicated to Bhagwan Shiva).

The BJP, which infiltrated and misused many of these to further their politico-ideological goals, is now projecting the Ayodhya Temple as India’s Rashtriya (national) Temple. In this imagining, akharas, ashrams, and mutts will be reduced to franchises of BJP’s Hindu-Vatican. 

by Pushparaj Deshpande

23/01/2024

Congress boycott right. Ayodhya event not about Ram, but coronates Hindutva as state religion KAPIL KOMIREDDI 16 January, 2024 https://theprint.in/opinion/congress-boycott-right-ayodhya-event-not-about-ram-but-coronates-hindutva-as-state-religion/1925091/     to accept that the spectacle about to be staged in Ayodhya can be extricated from politics is to sanctify the falsification of our living memory. The inauguration of the temple  to Ram in Ayodhya is not a religious event to which politicians have been invited out of courtesy; it is the culmination of the most consequential political agitation to remake India into a Hindu state to which politicians of all persuasions are being summoned to perform a legitimating role.

 Where’s the V-shaped recovery? https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/wheres-the-v-shaped-recovery/3368633/ Santosh Mehrotra January 19, 2024
Data on real wages, jobs, savings, consumption, etc, point at a K-shaped rebound 

the share of India’s Biggest 5 firms in total assets of the non-financial sectors rose from 10% in 1991 to nearly 18% in 2021, whereas the share of the next Big 5 business groups fell from 18% in 1992 to less than 9% in 2021. This growth has been the biggest in the last decade. “In other words, Big 5 grew not just at the expense of the smallest firms, but also of the next largest firms,” Acharya said.

The Biggest 5 industrial groups referred to in the paper are Mukesh Ambani-helmed Reliance Group, Tata Group, Aditya Birla Group, Adani Group, and Bharti Telecom. He said the growth of such conglomerates raises several concerns, like the risk of crony capitalism, related-party transactions within their byzantine corporate organisation charts and overleveraging due to an implicit too-big-to-fail perception among others. This is what drives government spokesmen to claim the importance of ‘national champions’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IThzagMI_Y0&t=10s

Lest We Forget the Teesta Disaster 2023

Report and Recommendations: Praful Rao, SaveTheHills and Darjeeling Himalaya Initiative

The Teesta Valley Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) of 04Oct2023 was certainly the biggest disaster to have affected the Darjeeling- Sikkim Himalaya after the mega -disaster of Oct1968. It was coincident that both the disasters occurred on the same date only half a century apart.

But while this disaster was totally under-reported in the national media, we in SaveTheHills and the Darjeeling Himalaya Initiative have made an attempt to correct this by featuring many posts in our blog and also making a formal report to the NDMA as well as the SSDMAs of Sikkim and W Bengal states on the impact of the GLOF as well as suggesting some short term measures which would see us thru the monsoons of 2024.