NO budget in post-independence India had been as openly cynical about the lives of the vast masses of the working people as the one presented on February 1, 2025. All pundits, from the finance minister downwards, agree that the strategy of the budget is to stimulate the economy by boosting middle class consumption through tax-cuts. Such a strategy however would make perfect sense only if the consumption increase of the middle class on account of the tax-cuts was not going to be...
INDIA is having an excellent first month of 2025 as regards space ventures, not only by the traditional state-sector but also by the nascent but growing private sector in space technology.
THE finance minister presented the budget for the FY 2025-26 in the context of a slowing down of growth, rising inequality, lack of private investment together with declining growth of government investment, depleting foreign exchange reserves and declining growth of exports. The growth of consumption expenditure continues to be low as real wage and earnings are eroded due to episodes of high food inflation.
THE Union Budget 2025-26 is a cruel betrayal of the requirements of the people of India. Instead of addressing the root cause of the demand problem being faced by so many sectors of the economy, the lack of purchasing power in the hands of large sections of the population because of mass unemployment and shrinking wages, the Modi government through the budget is seeking to stimulate the economy by giving tax cuts to the...
THE Modi led NDA government reportedly intends to notify the Labour Codes, probably in April 2025, and has started preparations for this. Soon after coming to power for the second time in 2019, the Modi government identified the so-called ‘Labour law reforms’ as one of its top-most priorities. It merged 29 existing labour laws into four Labour Codes and utilising its majority, got them passed in Parliament in 2019-20. But the government could...
THE 24th Tripura State Conference of the CPI(M) was held from January 29-31, 2025, at Agartala Town Hall. The venue was named ‘Sitaram Yechury-Buddhadeb Bhattacharya Nagar’ while the stage ‘Manik Biswas-Samsul Hoque Manch’ was named after the two state committee members who had passed away during the interim period between the last two conferences.
...THE 8th Jharkhand State Conference of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was held from January 9 to 11, 2025, in Ranchi's Namkum suburb. The conference called for building a better Jharkhand and it aimed to strengthen grassroots movements and build an independent and strong organisational base for the Party in the state.
IT did not take long. Within weeks, US President Donald J Trump authorised the firing of missiles at some caves in Somalia, where – he claimed – a military leader of ISIS (or the Islamic State) was hiding. No US president in the past quarter century has started his term without an attack on ‘terrorists’. Three days after he became president, on January 23, 2009, Barack Obama sent an aircraft to fire a missile at Ziraki village in North Waziristan (Pakistan...
THE voices of construction workers resonated through the historic Rani Rashmoni Avenue, Kolkata as thousands gathered in a resolute demonstration on January 24, 2025, demanding the rightful utilisation of the Construction Workers’ Welfare Fund. This large-scale assembly was organised by the Construction Workers’ Federation of India (CWFI) West Bengal state committee, urging the state government to...
CHANDIGARH witnessed a militant struggle against the privatisation of its public electricity utility for last two months. The Chandigarh UT administration forcefully privatised it on February 1, 2025. They lodged cases against the struggling employees and the protesting citizens. The indomitable struggle of the employees has compelled the new management to agree for a memorandum of settlement to protect the interests of the...
