THE Indian economy is clearly afflicted by stagflation. According to the provisional estimates of GDP released recently by the Central Statistical Organisation, growth in 2013-14 was, at 4.7 per cent, not very much higher than the 4.5 per cent of 2012-13. That rate is disappointing because it includes a negative rate of growth of manufacturing. Point-on-point consumer price inflation, on the other hand, was at a higher 8.6 per cent in April relative to 8.3 per cent in March. This definitely adds up to a form of stagflation.
AN investigative report by the Associated Press (AP) in April has revealed the details of a covert US programme code named the “ZunZuneo project.” The programme, started at the end of the last decade, was aimed at destabilising the Cuban government. According to the report, the project named after a Cuban word for the call of a humming bird, was launched by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to set up a Twitter style social media.
JOGO bonito, the beautiful game, (football) – “a liberation of flesh and spirit, a thing of soaring fantasy, the forbidden adventure of freedom” (Galeano) is back. Not that it ever left us. It is now back as a carnival – the biggest sporting event on the planet – the World Cup. And it comes with its set of controversies. Seven years since it was awarded the hosting rights, Brazil is slogging to get dressed up for the big day.
DR MAYA Angelou, the celebrated poet, writer, singer, and actress died at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in the United States on May 28, 2014. She was 86. The literary giant, most known for her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and Phenomenal Woman, a collection of poems, was one of the foremost African-American writers and thinkers of our times and one of the first black women in the United States to enjoy mainstream literary success.
A DELEGATION of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) comprising of Jagmati Sangwan, general secretary, Sheba Farooqui, secretary accompanied by Rajeev Shant and Banne Ali of the Uttar Pradesh All India Agricultural Workers Union had visited Katara Saadatganj village in Badaun district of UP on May 30, 2014, where the horrible incident of gang-rape and murder of two minor OBC girls occurred on May 27, 2014.
PRIME Minister Narendra Modi is notoriously fond of flashy mega projects whose value seems to lie not in any intrinsic merits, but in their audacious scale and in what they proclaim about his vision, authority and leadership capability. The huge statue of Sardar Patel in Gujarat under then Chief Minister Modi is a good example.
THE global economic crisis is usually seen as the sequel to the collapse of the housing bubble in the United States. This understanding however is inadequate. The formation of that bubble and its collapse are episodes which are themselves embedded within a deeper structural crisis that afflicts contemporary capitalism, one related to the phenomenon of “globalisation”.
HUMANITY'S collective conscience is raped. Of course, if we have one. Strong feelings? Feeling disgusted and sad that could not express in more stronger terms. If December 16 was not enough, what else would? Experience of each passing day teaches that sadism can get even more sadistic, brutality even more brutal and violence, even more violent. If December 16 was a red letter in the calendar, there are no more blue letters on it. Every day is getting a new coat of red, as it recedes into history. A paint of red. A stain of blood.
