Achche Din for Corporates and Sangh Parivar, Bure Din with a Vengeance for the Masses - (2)

ONE of the catchy slogans coined by Narendra Modi in his first Independence Day address from the ramparts of Red Fort was ‘Make in India’. Like most BJP slogans, it was designed to stoke patriotic feelings to cover up its real intentions. It sought to increase domestic industrial production and the manufacturing sector and held out the carrot of employment. For it to succeed, three things were needed. These three were land, labour and capital.

EMS Smrithy National Seminar 2015: A Landmark Event

EMS Smrithy 2015 National Seminar, the 17th in the series was held at Thrissur, the cultural capital of Kerala on June 13-14. Even though the birth place of Comrade EMS Namboodiripad is in the present Malappuram district, early part of his life which included his participation in the freedom movement was spent at Thrissur. The Centre for Science & Technology for Development (COSTFORD), an NGO committed to progressive, secular values has been organising the EMS Smrithy every year, since his demise.

National Optical Fibre Network Project And the Expert Committee Report

THE new NDA government's approach to every issue, irrespective of the problem, seems to be the same – hand it over to the private sector. Not surprisingly, the “expert” committee's review report on the ambitious National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) project –which is to provide broadband rural telephony – has recommended exactly that. Instead of BSNL, virtually the only telecom company providing rural telephony today, the committee has recommended large scale induction of private players. This is in spite of their dismal record in meeting their existing rural telephony obligations.

The Growing Centralisation

WHAT we are witnessing under the Modi regime is a significant reduction both in the relative amount of resources made available from the centre to the states, and also in the states’ ability to make their voices heard on matters of national economic policy. Such centralisation has been one of the chief hallmarks of the Modi administration.This fact however gets camouflaged by the central government’s acceptance of the recommendation of the Fourteenth Finance Commission to increase the share of the states from 32 to 42 percent in the divisible pool.

DYFI Holds Political School

A THREE day political school for leading youth cadre from south Indian states was held in Hosur, Tamilnadu from May 22-24, 2015. Inaugurating the school, Prakash Karat, former youth leader and Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M), said that the classes would help youth activists in achieving clarity on important issues as well as in their ideological development.

A total of 106 young cadre attended the classes, including 32 young women cadre.

J&K: Flood Package Extremely Disappointing

THE Jammu and Kashmir state committee of CPI(M) has described the central government’s flood rehabilitation and reconstruction package grossly inadequate and squarely against the expectations of the affected people of Jammu and Kashmir.

It is in utter disregard of the previous government’s memorandum to Government of India regarding grant of Rs 44000 crore as rehabilitation package. It is also nowhere near the tall promises of the PDP-BJP coalition government.

Onwards to Relentless Struggles

THE CPI(M) and the Left Front will go for relentless movements on burning issues of the people in West Bengal. Party state committee and Left Front committee have decided to launch sustained struggles, beginning from last week of June.One of the major issues is the spate of false police cases against Left activists and common people. In the four years of TMC rule, false cases against opposition activists and any kind of dissenters have become a rule in West Bengal. Left Front leaders and activists have been jailed or framed in hundreds of such cases.

Remembering Comrade Ramdas

I JOINED People’s Democracy editorial staff soon after it moved to Delhi from Calcutta after the emergency was lifted in 1977. Comrade Ramdas was the working editor, whom I knew from before as the Central Committee member and husband of Comrade Kitty Menon. Comrade Kitty Menon, (later colleague in Social Scientist and People’s Democracy), a teacher of economics at Delhi School of Economics at Delhi University was our Party mentor and was responsible for educating several generations of teachers and students in Marxism.

J & K: Centre’s Flood Relief Totally Inadequate

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement on June 19. IN utter disregard of the Jammu & Kashmir government’s earlier memorandum to the central government regarding grant of Rs 44000 crore as rehabilitation package, the central government has now announced a mere Rs 1667 crore.

A Creeping Authoritarianism

JUNE 25 marked the 40th anniversary of the internal emergency which lasted for 19 months. The imposition of emergency was an infamous and dark chapter in the history of post-independent India. Indira Gandhi, who had won a huge majority in the 1971 Lok Sabha election, was faced with rising popular discontent which erupted in the form of various mass movements such as the Nav Nirman movement in Gujarat and the JP movement. This period also saw the biggest working class struggle in the form of the railway strike in May 1974 involving 17 lakh workers.

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