THE World Bank and the IMF have started a new trend of late, of taking “progressive” positions in their publications even while insisting on the same old “conditionalities” in policy negotiations with particular countries. In accordance with this new trend these institutions have now got concerned with issues of poverty and inequality; and the World Bank has just brought out what is supposed to be the first of a series of annual publications tracking progress towards poverty removal and curtailment of inequality. This publication is called Poverty and Shared Prosperity.

THE 50,000-strong statewide adivasi struggle at Wada in Palghar district on October 3-4, 2016 was a mass struggle to remember and cherish. The earlier one lakh-strong two-day statewide peasant siege under AIKS leadership at Nashik on March 29-30, 2016, on the four burning issues of peasants – loan-waiver, remunerative prices, drought relief and land rights (see report in People’s Democracy/Loklahar, April 4-10, 2016) had brought the chief minister of Maharashtra to the negotiating table and he had then conceded some important demands.

USUALLY, Vijayadashami day has seen two addresses by the Hindutva forces – one by the RSS chief in Nagpur and the other by the Shiv Sena chief in Mumbai.  This year there was a third pole – the speech by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a Ramleela gathering in Lucknow.  This is what has made the politics associated with Dussehra distinctive this year. Both the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and the Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray lauded Modi for the “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control.  This was an acknowledgement of the elevated stature that Modi has acquired in the Hindutva camp. T

THE Students’ Union elections of the University of Hyderabad were held last week. Unlike the years before, this election held a significant importance in the national scenario. Universities and institutes across the country faced an onslaught of attacks on their autonomy through a set of policies and ineligible appointments under the present BJP-led government.

IN every country, in any language ‘No’ is ‘No’. Be it in English or in Hindi or in Bengali or in Russian or French.The girl said ‘No’ but the greedy, clammy hands tried to roam over her body, entangling her like a snake.In self- defence the girl shouted: “No”.“So the girl is not the culprit. The boys are guilty,” declares lawyer Deepak Sehgal unequivocally in the courtroom. He emphasized that the girl had said ‘No’.What Deepak Sehgal (Amitabh Bachchan) said isn’t true only for the courtroom or for the auditorium in the multiplex.