IN recent history, Tony Blair has beaten all competition hollow while triggering the Iraq invasion. The business of manufacturing ‘spin’ is an age-old pre-occupation in politics. One of the major exponents, Hitler’s propaganda minister Goebbels is considered one of the ‘best’ in the business. Not only did he manufacture with rapid fire speed and regularity but also owns the copyright for putting it on a firm theoretical foundation. He maintained that ‘spin’ is an interpretation of reality to the ‘people’ or the ‘masses’ and make them believe that it is the ‘truth’.

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.

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.

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.

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.