THE spectacle of the whole world petrified by the Covid pandemic and of little Cuba confidently engaging with it has drawn the attention and admiration of humanity. Now Cuba is again in the news for the so-called ‘end’ of the ‘Çastro era,’ as the outcome of the 8th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. The change of guard in the Cuban Party from the revolutionary heroes of the Cuban struggle from 1953 to 59 to the new generation of communists is indeed historic.

THE French investigative web-portal Mediapart released a three part series of articles last week containing much dramatic new material on touching on the controversial Rafale deal. The material once again brought into focus murky dealings, possible shady transactions, and evasive as well as non-cooperative responses by supposedly independent investigative agencies and top government and corporate officials in both India and France.

THE ongoing farmers’ struggle in India is an integral part of the class struggle by the producing classes - the peasantry and the working class- the world over against the imperialist globalisation.Declining purchasing capacity of the two major producing classes has paved the way for enormous recession and related massive unemployment and price rise.  The trade unions and organisations of the peasants, youth and students have built massive struggles and its natural consequence is mounting people’s fury on the Congress that had initiated imposing LPG policies on the people.   In the due cour

THE revised Public Sector Policy announced in the budget 2021-22 is fully oriented towards total privatisation of central public sector undertakings. It is no longer mere “divestment of equity” of CPSUs. Now it is whole-hog privatisation.  The Congress (I) government led by P V Narasimha Rao with Manmohan Singh as finance minister started divestment of equity through IPO. With the NDA led by Vajpayee in power, the attack of divestment coupled with outright privatisation was doggedly intensified, so much so, a full-fledged ministry of disinvestment was established.

AS on March 1, 2021, India has a huge buffer stock of food grains of 9.2 crore tonnes (including unmilled paddy) which is three times more than the mandated buffer. In 2019-2020 when the buffer stock was slightly less, according to the annual report of the FCI, the carrying costs of the buffer stock was over Rs 12,000 crore.