Vol. XLVIII No. 12 March 24, 2024

Workers Betrayed! Defeat BJP!!

THE ten years of Modi led BJP government saw a relentless attack on the livelihood and working conditions of the workers. The hard won rights of the workers are sought to be curtailed to facilitate their unbridled exploitation by the big corporates. The BJP government has subsumed twenty nine existing labour laws into four...

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Hindutva-Corporate Nexus Revealed

THE details of the electoral bonds scheme released so far have strikingly confirmed the existence of the communal-corporate, or more specifically, the Hindutva-corporate nexus in the country. As per the data available, the BJP has been the prime beneficiary of the bonds scheme getting Rs 8,252 crores since the inception of the bonds in 2018. This amounts to 50 per cent of the total amount redeemed through bonds. This was a cosy arrangement between the ruling...

Once More on Poverty Figures of India

THE other day the chief executive officer of Niti Aayog made a fantastic claim, that the poverty ratio in India had fallen below 5 per cent according to the 2022-23 consumption expenditure survey data. His claim was based on the fact that the per capita consumption expenditures of only 5 per cent of the population in 2022-23 fell below the poverty-lines for that year for rural and urban India, arrived at by updating, on the basis of consumer price indices, the...

Amended Water Act Permits Pollution by Corporates

THE government has secured the latest in a series of enactments seriously diluting earlier legislation on environmental issues, this time on water pollution. As has become customary with the Modi government, objections by the opposition were brushed aside, and there was virtually no discussion in either house of parliament. The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Amendment Act, 2024 (hereafter Water Act 2024), amending the...

Demographic Disaster and Rising Dependent Youth

ACCORDING to official sources, India’s unemployment rate in the past five years turned out to be one of the highest in the post-independence period. For decades before the current regime the average open unemployment rate used to be within the range of 2-3 per cent. In developing countries where labour resources are mostly unused, people can hardly afford to wait and remain unemployed in absence of unemployment supports and tend to...

Hindutva and Social Justice Cannot Go Together

THE cat was let out of the bag when Prime Minister Modi openly declared his support for sanatana dharma. In September of last year, when Udayanidhi Stalin made sharp and critical remarks suggesting that sanatana dharma opposes the notions of social justice and equality, Modi staunchly defended it. He rebuked those who criticised sanatana dharma, accusing them of harbouring a hidden agenda aimed at its destruction. He also goaded his...

Unraveling of Electoral Bonds and its Criminal Underpinnings

FOR the last ten years, the Modi government has unfailingly assumed a high moral ground against corruption. The first boast was on the ground that the BJP will change the paradigm and break from the past in taking corruption head-on. ‘Na khaunga, Na khane dunga’ was the prime minister's familiar refrain! It was then further refined that his role would be that of a vigilant watchman – ‘chowkidar’. The BJP’s...

WB: Left Front Announces First List of Candidates

ON March 14, the West Bengal Left Front announced its first list of 16 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The list was released by Left Front chairman Biman Basu in a press conference. Later on March 17, the Left Front also nominated RSP candidate Mili Oraon to contest in Alipurduar, bringing the total number of declared candidates to 17, with room for potential additional candidates from Congress and others. The first...

TN: 'Modi's Guarantee to People was Hunger, Poverty and Bulldozer'

"PRIME Minister Modi had declared (about corruption), 'na khaunga na khane dunga' ( neither would I eat, nor would I allow anybody else to eat), but the electoral bonds reveal that his party is the greatest eater of corporate funding ever heard of, said Brinda Karat, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member. They claimed to wipe out corruption and it is now clear that they lied to the nation and cheated...

DUJ Protests Attacks on Press Freedom And Democratic Right of Dissent

THE Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) held a meeting at the Press Club of India on March 16, 2024, condemning attacks on press freedom. Among the main demands were: “Release Prabir Purkayastha”, “Protect journalists’ livelihoods” “Save journalism for tomorrow”, “Protect press freedom and Working Journalist Act”, and “Reject repressive press laws”.

Delhi: Alipur Factory Fire: Exposing the Realities

TEN workers were killed in a massive fire and subsequent explosion that occurred on the morning of February 15, 2024, at a paint factory in Alipur, situated on the northern outskirts of Delhi. This incident is not an isolated one within Delhi's factories. Several other horrific incidents have occurred in recent years, including the Grain Market fire in December 2019 which claimed 43 lives and left 56 injured, the Firecracker Factory...