Some Disquieting Trends in the Budget

IT is clear by now that the figures provided in the 2019-20 budget are palpably unfounded. The budget has concealed the actual receipts and expenditures for 2018-19 even though these were available, because they show huge shortfalls compared to the budget estimates for that year. And all its estimates for 2019-20 are projections based on the revised estimates for 2018-19, which are close to the budget estimates for that year, rather than the much lower actuals. Hence the budget figures for the coming year cannot be taken seriously. An air of mendacity pervades the entire budget.

TELANGANA: CPI(M) Holds Extended State Committee Meeting

TELANGANA committee of the CPI(M) has organised an extended state committee meeting of the Party on July 9, at Sundarayya Vignana Kendram in Hyderabad. Party general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Polit Bureau members, Prakash Karat and B V Raghavulu attended the meeting. It was presided over by Ch Seetharamulu, Central Committee member of the Party.

Technology and the Decay of Liberalism

LIBERALISM is on the decline. The right-wing monster has re-emerged. The global response to the migrant crisis, and the speed at which racism and communalism is gaining legitimacy are clear symptoms of the decay of liberalism.

The truth is that the dictatorship of the oligarchs is back with a vengeance, legitimising racism, communalism, censorship and the surveillance state. Everything that the liberals found wrong with communism has come back to haunt them.

Decoding the Budget Numbers, and the Words!

SINCE Piyush Goyal tabled the interim budget before parliament earlier this year (February 1, 2019), the Lok Sabha elections giving the Modi government an almost certain additional five years in office is not the only development. In addition to the reality of deepening agrarian distress and grim employment situation that were known even then, at least three other mutually related hard facts relevant to the finalisation of the budget for 2019-20 have also become known since, being acknowledged even by the Economic Survey.

Union Budget: Payback Gift to Corporates

CPI(M) Polit Bureau has issued the following statement on July 5

Tripura: Nomination Filing Marred By Violence

THE process of filing nomination papers for the three tier panchayat elections in Tripura concluded on July 8 with widespread incidents of violence. The state election commission here, as was apprehended in an earlier column, completely failed to provide security and an atmosphere of free and fair election to the opposition.

The figures of candidates from different political parties themselves are proof enough to show how the opposition has been barred from taking part in the election.

Kerala Marches Forward in Health

KERALA has once again topped in the latest health ranking NITI Aayog report, "Healthy States, Progressive India". The report ranks states and union territories on their year-on-year incremental change as well as overall performance with respect to 23 health indicators such as neonatal mortality rate, ‘under five’ mortality rate, percentage of low birth weight infants, sex ratio at birth etc., NITI Aayog had first come out with its state-wise health rankings in February 2018 over financial year 2014-15 (base year) to 2015-16 (reference year).

Stop Eviction of Tribals

FOUR organisations, (Adivasi Adhikar Rashtriya Manch, Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Mahasabha, Campaign for Survival and Dignity and Bharat Jan Andolan) with lakhs of members from adivasi communities have written a letter to Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, seeking his intervention to stop the attacks on tribals and forest dwellers by the central government. Below we reproduce the letter:

Withdraw Amendments to the Forest Act 1927

CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat has written a letter to Prakash Javadekar, minister for environment, forest and climate change, on July 9, 2019, regarding the proposed amendments to the Indian Forest Act 1927. Below we publish the text of the letter.

The Numbers the Finance Minister Does Not Want You to See

ONE of the most startling aspects of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s speech is that it did not provide the numbers that are the basic reason for having a budget speech in the first place: the numbers relating to overall revenues and expenditure of the government, either for the previous year or for the current year. This was widely commented on, and the FM’s response was that all these numbers are available in the supplementary material provided in the budget documents, so there is no need to go into them in the speech.

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