INDEPENDENCE DAY: A Hollow Speech

COMPARED to the grandiose vision and slogans set out in his first speech at the Red Fort on Independence Day last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a defensive speech on August 15 this year. Actually, Modi has much to be defensive about. His speech was mostly about what has been accomplished by the government regarding the announcements made in the last Red Fort address. But he had to labour hard and in vain to prove the point that much has been done.

Foxconn in India

FOXCONN, the world’s largest contract manufacturing company for consumer electronics, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding to set-up a factory in Maharashtra with an investment of $ 5 billion (Rs 32,000 crores). The Taiwan based Hon Hai Precision Industry Company, whose trade name is Foxconn, has become a giant manufacturing company which, on contract, supplies all the leading electronic companies like Apple, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Samsung and others. That such a company is setting up hardware manufacturing facilities in India is noteworthy. But Foxconn has another reputation that one

Shielding Wrongdoing

THE monsoon session of parliament has been stalled ever since it began on July 21. The main reason for this is the Modi government’s obduracy in refusing to even recognise that there are serious charges against a union minister and against the two chief ministers of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. After refusing to respond to the opposition demand that action be taken in these three cases, throughout the prime minister has remained silent. He refuses to take a stand and his ministers have been trying to hurl counter-charges against Congress chief ministers.

Implications of the Gurdaspur Attack

THE Gurdaspur attack by an extremist squad crossing over from Pakistan is a first of its kind in Punjab. The three-member group is reported to have crossed the international border a few kilometers from the site of attack in Dinanagar. Two similar attacks by Lashkar –e-taiba squads had taken place in Jammu earlier this year.

The terrorist attack killed seven people altogether, three of whom were civilians. The extremists ended up in the Dinanagar Police Station where they were finally killed by the security forces after a 15 hour gun battle.

Yakub Memon: Miscarriage of Justice

THE execution of Yakub Memon is a miscarriage of justice. There is no other way to describe the hanging of a man when there were strong mitigating circumstances to commute his sentence. Yakub Memon was certainly guilty of a crime – involvement in the conspiracy which led to the heinous bomb blasts in Mumbai which took the lives of 257 persons. But his role and the nature of the offence did not warrant capital punishment. The ends of justice would have been served if he had been awarded a life sentence, just as the ten others whose death sentences were commuted to life.

Ufa meeting: Take the Process Forward

THE BJP government is caught between its own aggressive postures and the contradictory realities as far as Pakistan is concerned. This is what has emerged from the episode of the joint statement issued after the prime ministers of India and Pakistan met at Ufa in Russia on July 10 and the events thereafter. The Ufa statement signaled the resumption of talks between the two countries. The joint statement talked of the resolve of both sides to discuss all outstanding issues.

Betrayal of Hope in Greece

PRIME Minister Alexis Tsipras and the Syriza-led government of Greece have abjectly capitulated to the diktats of the Eurozone-IMF bosses. This is a tragedy for the Greek people. The formation of the Syriza government had raised hopes that the hateful austerity measures imposed by Troika, consisting of the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund, would be ended and national sovereignty defended. These hopes have been cruelly dashed in the short space of six months.

Vyapam: the Killer Scam

THE Vyapam scandal in Madhya Pradesh has reached alarming proportions with the spate of deaths of persons accused in the scam or those who were beneficiaries of the racket. The Vyavasik Pariksha Mandal (Vyapam) is the Professional Examination Board. It conducts examinations for admissions to higher education and recruitment for government services.

Spreading Stain of Corruption

THE stain of corruption, nepotism and crony capitalism is enveloping the Modi government and the BJP state governments. Narendra Modi and the BJP had made the massive corruption under the UPA government their main plank in the Lok Sabha election campaign. Narendra Modi had promised to put an end to the loot and corruption under Congress rule. After the completion of one year of the BJP government, speaking at a rally in Mathura district, Modi claimed that he had not guaranteed acche din for those who looted the nation; for them it was bure din.

A Creeping Authoritarianism

JUNE 25 marked the 40th anniversary of the internal emergency which lasted for 19 months. The imposition of emergency was an infamous and dark chapter in the history of post-independent India. Indira Gandhi, who had won a huge majority in the 1971 Lok Sabha election, was faced with rising popular discontent which erupted in the form of various mass movements such as the Nav Nirman movement in Gujarat and the JP movement. This period also saw the biggest working class struggle in the form of the railway strike in May 1974 involving 17 lakh workers.

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