THE May 9 incidents of violence in Sri Lanka brought into sharp relief the deteriorating situation caused by the grave economic crisis which has gripped the country. The economic crisis has now engulfed the political system and the entire society. At the heart of this maelstrom is the Rajapaksa family regime. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa who wields executive power has pressurised his elder brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to resign as prime...
FOR over two years now, the world has been facing a pandemic the like of which has not been seen for a century, and which has already taken 15 million lives according to the WHO, without being anywhere near an end. This is an unprecedented crisis for humanity as a whole, which requires a massive effort on the part of every government, especially governments in third world countries where the people are particularly vulnerable not just to the disease but also to the destitution...
RESPONSE of the media and the public to the series of reports together forming the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC/AR6) has been surprising, yet telling, in important ways. IPCC’s Assessment Reports are written and released roughly at intervals of six years and, as reports based on extensive peer-reviewed information and data, written up by leading scientists and experts from other disciplines with...
THE struggle to define the working day as Marx described in Capital I was a protracted and concealed civil war between the capitalists and the working class spanning for more than half a century. For capital, the consumption of labour from the labour-power shouldn’t face any limit of time. The longer the constant capital or machines put to work, the greater will be the possibility of extracting surplus value from the workers. Hence...
WHILE prime minister Modi was, as usual, busy inaugurating projects in poll-bound Gujarat and visiting Europe, retail prices of another essential food item, wheat flour or atta have reached their highest level. According to data collected from across the country by the central government’s department of consumer affairs, average atta prices have increased from Rs 28.80 per...
THE recommendations of the J&K Delimitation Commission are blatantly unjustified and illogical. This has recommended increasing six seats in the Jammu region while only one in Kashmir valley. The Commission considered the 2011 census for delimiting territorial constituencies. The population is the cardinal parameter in such a process. According to the census population of Kashmir is 68.9 lakhs while that of Jammu is 53.8...
THE 15th Tripura state conference of the DYFI was held at Agartala Town Hall. Inaugurating the conference on May 4, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and former youth leader Manik Sarkar gave the call for:- resisting robbery of the people’s mandate to protect democracy; exposing the deceptions that the ruling BJP resorted to in order to rule the nation as well as the state; rousing the people against the onslaughts on their livelihood inflicted by the government;...
A NEW report comes out with a troubling headline: that annual global expenditure on weapons has gone over $2 trillion. The United States leads the pack, with its spending greater than that of the next ten countries combined. If you add in the US intelligence budget and the money that the United States spends on its nuclear arsenal, then US annual military spending by itself is above $1 trillion. This is an astronomical amount of money, a colossal waste of human resources...
NOTHING can be more apt in describing the situation arising out of the unfortunate incident of the denial of boarding on an IndiGo flight to a teenager with a disability at the Ranchi airport on May 8, 2022. Ten years back, in February 2012, Jeeja Ghosh, a disability rights activist and frequent traveller, was deboarded from a Spicejet flight. Ironically, she was on her way to speak on disability issues at an...
SERVICE conditions of bank employees in the country were first codified in the Sastry Award at the industry level in 1952 and subsequently amended in the Desai Award in 1958. The era of bilateral discussions commenced in 1966. The first bipartite settlement was arrived on October 19, 1966, between the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) and trade unions of bank employees. The latest in the series, the 11th bipartite settlement, was signed...
