AFTER seven days of disruption of parliamentary proceedings, the government is now planning to cut short the second half of the budget session by guillotining the demands for grants and passing the finance bill without any discussion.The peculiarity of this decision stems from the fact that it is the ruling party which has been holding up the proceedings in both houses since March 13 with the demand that Rahul Gandhi apologise for certain remarks he made about the state of democracy in India while he was abroad. That this is just a pretext for disrupting the house and preventing any discuss

THE AIKS in Maharashtra began the third kisan long march from Dindori in Nashik district to Mumbai on March 12, 2023, on a 15-point charter of demands. It was withdrawn at Vasind in Thane district six days later on March 18, after the state government conceded many of the major demands in writing and the chief minister placed the agreement with the AIKS before the state assembly on March 17. (See separate box for demands conceded by government.)THREE KISAN LONG MARCHESThis was the third kisan long march in Maharashtra led by the AIKS.

CONDEMNING the violence unleashed upon the CPI(M) and Congress in Tripura by the BJP-RSS combine, political parties in Tamil Nadu asserted that the game plan to wipe out Communists from the state or the country would not succeed.In a public demonstration organised by the CPI(M) Tamil Nadu state committee in Chennai on March 13th evening, political parties in the state – DMK, VCK, MDMK, Dravidar Kazhagam, MMK, Vaazhvurimai Katchi, CPI(ML), and representatives from May 17 movement – unitedly condemned the violence unleashed by the ruling BJP and its goondas in Tripura since the results were d

THE National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD) has addressed two letters to the secretary, department of empowerment of persons with disabilities, Government of India on issues surrounding the validity of the Universal Disability ID (UDID) Card.Dated March 15, 2023 the letters are in response to an office memorandum and a DO letter issued by the department of empowerment of persons with disabilities (DEPwD), Government of India, which is the nodal department for disability affairs.

FOR a large part of the dirigiste period, the gross domestic product of the Indian economy grew at a rate of around 4 per cent per annum or less, which, though an improvement compared to the colonial era that had witnessed virtual stagnation, was not very impressive. This low steady growth over a prolonged period of time was facetiously referred to as the “Hindu rate of growth” by many economists (perhaps because with this rate an eternity would be required for any noticeable social transformation).