GREEK Premier Alexis Tsipras’ acceptance of an “austerity package” on July 13, which contained measures rejected by the Greek people in a referendum barely a week before, represents not just an abject surrender by the Syriza government, or a sign of contempt on the part of German finance capital for the Greek electorate; it marks a decisive turning point for Europe (and indeed for the rest of the world), and the end of the road for a whole way of thinking on the Left, especially the European Left.

THE Reserve Bank of India, as is to be expected, has been denying that its governor Raghuram Rajan had ever suggested that the world was facing the possibility of a 1930s-type Great Depression. Members of the “global financial community” are not supposed to say such things; so even if Dr Rajan did, a denial was inevitable.

The point however is not whether Rajan actually said this. The point is not even whether the world would actually slip into a 1930s-type depression. The point is whether the issues raised by Rajan at the event organised in London were valid and significant.

THE NDA government’s appointment of hack loyalists to important positions in the sphere of education has rightly raised concerns about the damage being done to the education system. But this is not the sole source of danger to the system. The era of globalisation of capital brings in its train a process of destruction of education, of which in the Indian context the intrusion of communal-fascism into the sphere of education is an important additional ingredient. This process of destruction, its “how” and “why”, has to be understood in its totality.

IF one adds up the foreign exchange reserves of all the countries in the world, including under the term “reserves” what these countries hold in the form of gold, US dollars, other reserve currencies, Special Drawing Rights of the IMF, and also liquid assets such as short-term Treasury Bills of the US government, then the total sum in August 2014 came to $12.03 trillion. Nearly two-thirds of this amount is held by developing countries whose reserve accumulation started increasing after the Asian financial crisis of the late nineties.

A VERY simple calculation is enough to illuminate what has been happening in the Indian economy over the last few decades. In July 1973, I know from personal knowledge, the starting basic salary of an Associate Professor in a central university was Rs 700 per month. Nowadays the starting basic salary of an Associate Professor in a central university is about Rs 47,000 per month (which is the sum of Rs 39,000 and Rs 8,000 shown under two separate heads).