THE latest product manufactured by the union government as a part of its Make in India campaign is the project of manufacturing data on the growth of jobs and enterprises. The trend was started by the prime minister himself in his much publicised interview in the Swarajya magazine. So what were the falsehoods perpetrated by Modi? First, it was said that 41 lakh formal jobs have been created between September 2017 and April 2018.

THE rhetoric of ‘crusade against corruption’ now stands exposed.  Prime Minister Modi’s lieutenant Amit Shah admitted it as much.  The Rs 15 lakh bonanza from the black money stashed in foreign bank accounts will never reach.  Shah accepted that this was unadulterated jumla. From demonetisation to digitalisation and the GST; these dramatic initiatives were pitched as grand narrative against corruption.  But this cleansing operation is empty hoax. All the extinguished currency has safely returned to the financial system.  Counterfeits are microscopically small.

THE quadrilateral alliance between the United States, Japan, Australia and India is once again taking shape.  During the recent ASEAN Summit in Manila, on the sidelines, a meeting of officials of the four countries was held.  Later, during the course of the Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held meetings separately with the leaders of the four countries. The official-level meeting of the four participant countries did not issue a joint statement.  Each country issued a statement explaining the outcome of the meeting.  But the common theme in all the four statements was the agreed decisio

SIKAR, situated in Shekhawati region of Rajasthan, has a glorious history of peasant struggles. From 1920s through 1960s, peasants of Sikar fought successfully against the jagirdars. Sikar had an extremely oppressive jagirdari regime under the Raja of Sikar and peasants worked under a huge burden of taxes (lag) and obligation to provide unpaid labour and military services (bag).

The Three Year Action Agenda of the NITI Aayog is full of tailored prescriptions for the government to virtually privatise all sectors, albeit in the name of PPPs. Niti Aayog, the champion ‘consultancy firm’, which enjoys government patronage, is parroting the World Bank line. Coming from World Bank, they are called ‘conditions’ attached to loans, while these very prescriptions coming from the Aayog are called ‘advice’.