INDIA is one among her peers recording a very low tax-GDP ratio, and the effective tax rate for the corporates have been sometimes lower than the income tax rates applicable to middle class income slabs. This low tax regime is a key mandate of neoliberalism as it is committed to unshackle corporate capital from the marred regulations that are meant to mobilise resources for subsidising the poor. Hence tax should be kept low to ensure greatest freedom for capital!

THE election manifesto of the CPI(M) for the Lok Sabha elections has raised an important issue which has a vital bearing on India’s democracy and the fundamental rights of citizens. This concerns the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and how it operates under the jurisdiction of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).The manifesto states “Replace PMLA with suitable law to prevent misuse. The ED must be divested of its law-enforcement powers”.This is a timely and necessary prescription, if democracy and the rights of the opposition are to be protected.

ON March 19, 2024, the head of France’s ground forces, General Pierre Schill, published an article in the newspaper, Le Monde, with a blunt title: ‘The Army Stands Ready’. Schill cut his teeth in France’s overseas adventures in the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, and Somalia. In this article, General Schill wrote that his troops are ‘ready’ for any confrontation and that he could mobilise 60,000 of France’s 121,000 soldiers within a month for any conflict.

Under Modi Raj, India’s top 1 per cent income share is among the very highest in the world, higher than even South Africa, Brazil and the US, as per a latest World Inequality Database paper.INDIA may boast winding long highways and expressways, glittering airports, malls and skylines dotting its cities, but when it comes to economic inequality, it has become far worse than during British Raj, says a new paper by World Inequality Database.The world’s largest democracy, which is providing free food to 81 crore hungry Indians, also has “Billionaire Raj” with the top 1 per cent holding

CPI(M) Polit Bureau has issued the following statement on March 22THE Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) strongly condemns the arrest of Delhi chief minister and national convenor of AAP, Arvind Kejriwal by the ED.Clearly, the Modi government and the BJP are in a panic over the growing disenchantment of the people with the Modi government’s performance, disclosures of its own corrupt practices and exposures of electoral bond details.