THE NDA government’s appointment of hack loyalists to important positions in the sphere of education has rightly raised concerns about the damage being done to the education system. But this is not the sole source of danger to the system. The era of globalisation of capital brings in its train a process of destruction of education, of which in the Indian context the intrusion of communal-fascism into the sphere of education is an important additional ingredient. This process of destruction, its “how” and “why”, has to be understood in its totality.

IF one adds up the foreign exchange reserves of all the countries in the world, including under the term “reserves” what these countries hold in the form of gold, US dollars, other reserve currencies, Special Drawing Rights of the IMF, and also liquid assets such as short-term Treasury Bills of the US government, then the total sum in August 2014 came to $12.03 trillion. Nearly two-thirds of this amount is held by developing countries whose reserve accumulation started increasing after the Asian financial crisis of the late nineties.

A VERY simple calculation is enough to illuminate what has been happening in the Indian economy over the last few decades. In July 1973, I know from personal knowledge, the starting basic salary of an Associate Professor in a central university was Rs 700 per month. Nowadays the starting basic salary of an Associate Professor in a central university is about Rs 47,000 per month (which is the sum of Rs 39,000 and Rs 8,000 shown under two separate heads).

THERE is a common perception that with the government accepting the recommendation of the Fourteenth Finance Commission to raise the share of the states in the divisible pool to 42 per cent, there has been a substantial increase in the resources available to the states; and that a new “progressive” era has dawned in the Indian economy, since the states, which are the main spenders on welfare and social sector activities, will now have more resources at their command.

THE victory of a Left Alliance, Syriza, in the Greek elections on January 25, was a matter of great significance, especially because that victory was based on a promise that Syriza would get rid of the memoranda imposing austerity on Greece by the “Troika” (the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF). Syriza’s victory was thus expressive of a popular revolt against neo-liberalism.