 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I am Sumedha and today we're bringing you the glimpse of some of the most important stories that we report about at NewsClick. Millions of workers across India are gearing up to go on a nationwide strike on the 8th and 9th of January. One of the primary reasons why these workers are going on a strike is to strive for better wages. Look at the chart which summarizes the minimum wages that are given to workers in major states. Now, actually compare it to the minimum wages which are needed by a family of at least four persons. It is important to remember that these are notified or statutory wages which are declared by the state governments in accordance with the minimum wage laws. On the ground, the workers end up getting much less than this. As you can see, barring a few states, the notified wages are actually half of what is required, which is the minimum wage of rupees 18,000 per month. A vast majority of industrial workers and employees in the service sector are not even getting the statutory wage. The exploitative employers use a thousand creative ways to pay them less. Some of the most common ways in which the employers are successful in doing so include not paying the worker overtime wages. For example, the worker has worked for 12 hours instead of the actual amount of 8 hours, they do not get their overtime wages. The employers in certain cases also coerce the workers to sign on registers saying that they have received the wage. They also cut wage on leaves taken etc. Invariably, women in the profession are paid much less than the men are. The coming strike months before the general election is actually a final push to the ruling party and is also likely to serve as a warning for the future ones to come. There are very few salaries for workers in the contract, so it is very difficult for them to survive. We do not have any doubts from the government. The government has never heard anything. Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh is witnessing a very grave problem. The entire city's administration is stuck on solving just one issue, which is the issue of stray cattle in rural areas. The villagers are calling the situation increasingly alarming as over the past one and a half years the cattle crisis has increased phenomenally. The government along with the Gauraksha committees have made moving cattle from one place to another extremely difficult. The situation has become so grave that farmers are now compelled to take their cattle to government buildings, hospitals, schools and lock them up there. The protest against the problem started when farmers from the Tamotia village decided to lock up 500 stray cattle in a municipal school. The school had to remain shut for two days. But the problem escalated like wildfire with farmers from local regions also locking up stray cattle in governmental buildings. The 106th Indian Science Congress is ongoing in Punjab from 4th to 7th of January this year. The Congress is convened to promote the cause of science in India. But let me tell you some instances in the Congress itself which go against the cause and are well ridiculous in itself. On the first day, Andhra Pradesh University's Vice-Chancellor G. Nageshwara Rao said that the Kauravas from Mahabharata would actually test tube babies. Also, Ravana from Ramayana had 24 aircrafts and Sri Lanka also had passports. Apparently, Nageshwara Rao is a professor of inorganic chemistry. At the same session, scientists K. J. Krishnan from Tamil Nadu said that Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein were both wrong in their theory of the gravitational waves. In reality, the gravitational waves should now be rechristened as the Narendra Modi waves. So on the morning of January 5th, a small group of acutely embarrassed scientists as well as research scholars gathered outside the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore to protest against the irrational statements being made at the Indian Science Congress. It's really hard to set aside the fact that India's ruling party has empowered a clutch of people to vocalise their pseudo-scientific beliefs. Without any fear of ridicule, let alone consequence. When we hear people around us, especially in leadership positions, making a historical statements and commenting on unscientific facts, one should be able to actually question them and tell them that they are wrong. However, then we end up seeing reports on television channels about how people are being attacked for voicing their opinions. Remember our beloved Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji telling us that India was the first country in the world to ever have plastic surgery because we fixed an elephant's head on a human. And that Rajasthan High Court judge who said that peacocks don't have sex but procreate through tears. They must be crying a lot. Oh, and according to Harsh Vardhan, who is our science minister, Stephen Hawking himself has admitted that Vedas had a better theory than E equals to MC2. Jokes apart, actually these weren't even jokes for the people who were making these statements. It is important to note that technological advancements can take place only on a solid theoretical foundation of science. And given the kind of statements that are being made on this prestigious event, the future of science in India seems big. Is it not test tube baby? It's making test tube baby. Stem cell research. Stem cell research was done in this country thousands of years ago. Today we speak about stem cell research. When we say stem cell, even today many people don't understand what stem cell is. But thousands of years ago, we had this technology. We had 100 Kauravas for one mother because of stem cell technology, because of test tube babies. In the eighth week of the Yellow West Movement, about 50,000 protesters were mobilized from different parts of France this weekend. Even after two months of agitation, the Yellow West Movement is going strong and is determined to seek the resignation of Emmanuel Macron. The protesters are demanding that the system in France needs to be made more inclusive of the lower class people who are currently bearing the brunt of Macron's anti-poor policies. The Yellow West Movement began on November 17 after the Emmanuel Macron government decided to hike fuel taxes as a way to combat climate change. This decision became the spark that actually ignited a revolution against Macron's anti-poor policies since he has taken office. Faced with the anger of protesters and huge mobilizations in Paris and other parts of France, the Macron government had to roll back the tax hike. He also announced tax cut for pensioners. He also instructed the bosses to give bonuses to their workers. Despite all these small overtures, the French government has failed to placate the anger of the lower and the middle working classes. That's all that we have for you today on this episode of The Daily Roundup. To follow these stories and many more, log on to our website www.newsclick.in and subscribe to us on YouTube and follow us on Facebook.