THERE is massive unemployment in the country that especially afflicts the youth; there is a huge and persistent inflation in food prices; there is acute and unprecedented rural distress; there is a crisis in the petty production sector; and income and wealth inequality has reached levels where the whole world is talking about it. One would have thought that a budget presented in the midst of all this would have shown some urgency, some boldness for...
IN his opus The Wealth of Nations published in 1776 Adam Smith drew a distinction between the progressive state, the stationary state and the declining state. The progressive state was one where capital accumulation would be occurring at a rate faster than the growth of population, because of which wages would be high and population growing; in a declining state by contrast the opposite happened, while in a stationary state the capital stock and the...
THE radical shift in labour relations from regimes of standard employment to fragmented and flexibilised labour force under neoliberalism is signified by a radical shift of responsibilities of the reproduction of labour force from the capitalist employer to the State through the denial of indirect wage payments to workers. One of the major achievements of labour movement in the past was the recognition of elements as constituents of wage...
The union budget promotes further centralisation and encroaches on states' federal rights, while driving corporatization of agriculture to benefit predatory agribusinesses. Agricultural and allied sector allocations have continuously declined from 5.44 per cent in 2019 to 3.15 per cent currently, with a 21.2 per cent decrease compared to...
SEVERE power cuts lasting over twelve hours a day had been going on at a stretch for the past two months. The prolonged outages had caused disruptions in educational and agricultural activities, and children were falling ill due to the sweltering heat. Frustrated with the situation, the villagers of Enayetpur in Manikchak decided on July 18 to rise in protest blocking the road in a demonstration against the...
THE Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) has strongly criticised the union budget for its obstinate direction of corporatisation of agriculture at the cost of farmers and workers, and usurping the rights of state governments thus violating the basic concept of the federal character of the Constitution of India. The budget prepared under the duress of international finance capital has declared a tax exemption of 5 per cent for...
THE National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD) has issued a statement on July 21, in response to the recent scandal involving trainee IAS officer Puja Khandekar, who has been accused of multiple frauds. The NPRD's statement highlights the disturbing ableist attitudes revealed by several high-ranking officials in the wake of the scandal, calling out their inherent prejudices against disabled individuals....
GENERAL Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong, a thinker, a culturalist, a theoretical flag of the Party, and an eminent student who has constantly studied and followed great President Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, morality, and lifestyle, has devoted his lifetime to the revolutionary cause...
THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), in a statement issued on July 23, has vehemently criticised the Karnataka government's recent move to amend the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishment Act of 1961, which would increase the working hours in the IT/ITES/BPO sector to 14 hours a day. It said that the proposed amendment is an infringement on basic workers' rights...
THE Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) demands the immediate withdrawal of criminal cases filed against people for waving Palestinian flags during Muharram processions. It has been reported that these cases were filed in Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand under stringent sections of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) upon complaints made by...
