DELHIHUNDREDS of people participated in the joint march of the Left Parties led by CPI(M), CPI, CPI (ML)-Liberation, AIFB, RSP and CGPI from Mandi House to Jantar Manch on February 18, where it culminated in a public meeting.                                                          Prakash Karat, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, while addressing the public meeting pointed that the budget does not provide any way out of the slowdown plaguing the Indian economy.  Modi government provided tax concessions of Rs 1.45 lakh crore to the corporates last September.

RAISING slogans like: “go back trump”, “hands off Indian agriculture”, “no to opening up of poultry and dairy market to US products”, the AIKS has decided to build a strong opposition to the visit of Donal Trump, president of the United States of America.  The AIKS in a statement issued on February 17, has opposed the decision of the Narendra Modi led BJP government to invite US president to India on February 24 and 25, 2020 and facilitate the signing of trade agreements to open up the dairy and poultry market to US products.

TWO judgments delivered by two High Courts have forthrightly upheld the fundamental right of citizens to protest.  The Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court set aside an order by the additional district magistrate against allowing protests in Beed against the CAA.  The Karnataka High Court, two days earlier, held that the prohibitory orders under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) imposed by the Bengaluru police to prevent protests against the CAA were illegal.These are two significant judgments at a time when sections of the higher judiciary and even the Supreme Court ar

THESE notes are meant to clarify a point made earlier (Peoples’ Democracy, June 30, 2018) about the erstwhile socialist economies not having over-production crises as capitalist economies do.It is in the nature of capitalism to have “over-production crises”, i.e., crises arising from “over-production” relative to demand. “Over-production” does not mean that more and more goods keep getting produced relative to demand, so that unsold stocks keep piling up.

THE budget session of parliament began on January 31 with Ram Nath Kovind’s address to the joint sitting of both houses. On February 1, the union budget 2020-21 was presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. In the budget speech, one would hardly get any indication of either the economic slowdown or the unemployment rate, which is the highest in decades.