The same term is often employed by different people with different meanings, and this can be a source of immense confusion. The World Bank has done this to good effect in the past, taking over terms that are being used in a particular sense, especially by the Left, and using them in a very different sense, in order to create deliberate confusion and exploit in some way the sympathetic feeling that the term had attracted from people in its initial usage. “Structural adjustment” is a prime example of such appropriation by the World Bank.

INDIA’S anti-colonial struggle was not just about getting independence from foreign rule. In fact, this struggle would not even have succeeded if it had been only about that.

THE demonetisation of 86 percent of the currency of the country, a virtually unprecedented  measure anywhere in the world, has brought immense hardship to the working people of the country, and will damage their living standards permanently (since the Modi government plans not to replace the entire value of the demonetised notes by printing new ones).

WE are seeing in India at present a remarkable inversion of reason. The more the common people suffer from the impact of Modi’s demonetisation, the more he is lauded for the “courage” shown by him in undertaking it. An economic measure should be, and normally is, judged on the basis of how it benefits the people, and any measure that brings distress to the people is derided for that reason. What we find in the present case however is just the opposite: the more demonetisation brings distress to the people, the more it is applauded for its wisdom and courage.

SPOKESMEN of the ruling party are busy these days spreading another falsehood, namely that, because of demonetisation which has brought in huge amounts of cash to their coffers, banks would be so keen to lend that their lending rates are going to fall, and that such a fall will act as a stimulus for the economy.This is completely wrong, and banks’ lending rates can never fall for this reason. They may of course fall because the monetary policy announced by the Reserve Bank of India is so altered as to cause such a fall.