Women and the Covid Lockdown: Some Aspects - I

INDIVIDUAL stories of suffering and of heroism often reflect a wider social reality. There have been many such in this period of lockdown.

Existential Crisis in Tourism Sector; Workers Hardest Hit

MOST of the big hotels in Shimla, the capital city, and in the state of Himachal Pradesh have started laying-off their workforce; the medium and smaller ones did it a few weeks after the first lockdown began. The major hotels that have started laying-off their workers include Marina, Combermere, Landmark, Rajdoot, East Bourne, Shere-e-Punjab, Himland West, and almost a dozen others. There is no intervention from the government to provide relief either to the workers or the hospitality industry to ensure that at least their wage bill could be taken care of.

Astronomical Increase in NPAs in the Current Financial Year

THE Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) is a burning issue of the banking Industry. The central government has been claiming that IBC would be an effective law to recover the NPA of the large borrowers. But the present experience seems to prove otherwise and due to that, the additional NPA in the current financial year is feared to increase astronomically.

CPI(M) Virudhunagar District Committee Survey: A Good Initiative

THE utter failure of the central government to provide meaningful relief to the tens of crores of our people who have lost their jobs and livelihoods following the lockdown imposed by it in the wake of the Covid19 pandemic is by now well documented. The CPI(M) and other Left parties had put forward concrete proposals for providing immediate relief to the people as well as for reviving the economy and putting the country on a path of self- reliant development.

Migrant workers stuck in a Quagmire

THE Supreme Court has finally passed the desired judgement, though too late, on the travel of migrant workers back to their homes. The SC has ordered that the centre and the state governments must ensure that within 15 days the migrant workers reach their destination. So far so good.

Assam Gas Blowout & Fire: Harbinger of Ecological Disaster in NE India

PSU Oil India Limited’s (OIL) natural gas Well No.5 in its Baghjan Oil Fields in Assam’s Tinsukhia district in Eastern Assam, less than a kilometre from the ecologically rich and fragile Dibru-Saikhova National Park and Biosphere Reserve with several other ecological hotspots in close proximity, suffered a blowout ie, an uncontrolled release of natural gas, on May 27, 2020, throwing up huge quantities of gas at high pressure into the air.

The Myth of ‘Gujarat Model’ and its Implosion - II

IT is estimated that more than 6000 NRIs had come to attend the ‘Namaste Trump’ event. Nobody has gauged. Only on March 5, the screening at the airport started. The large number of private health facilities was refusing to cooperate with the government. While the state health secretary informed the media that there is no epidemic and the Epidemic Act has only been invoked for legally empowering the administration, this was not invoked to address this problem. The testing was low; the frontline health workers were denied PPE and other necessary gear to insulate them from infection.

MNREGA Allocation Fails to Address the Crisis

FINANCE minister has announced an allocation of Rs 40,000 crore for MNREGA. The FM had claimed in her press conference on May 17 that additional funds would be provided for MNREGA and 40-50 per cent more workers will be enrolled under the scheme compared to May 2019. However, the total budget available, including the Rs 40,000 crore for the MNREGA does not concur with her claims.

Corporatisation of Peasant Agriculture: Freedom for Agro-Business, Slavery for Peasantry

‘It is a historic day today for agriculture. The country gained freedom in 1947, but farmers are getting freedom through this ordinance,” union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar said during a press conference on June 3. This is the manner how the RSS led syndicate used to rollout their propaganda.

Open Source Covid Movement: Non-Capitalist Alternative to Control Pandemic

AT a recent press conference, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan made an important announcement with global political dimensions. He said that the monopoly drug manufacturers are engaged in developing vaccines, medicines and other products related to the treatment of Covid-19. These would be patented and sold in the market for prices unaffordable to ordinary people. As an alternative, an Open Source Covid Movement based on the principles of cooperation and sharing is also coming up. The chief minister announced the state’s solidarity with this movement.

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