Peoples Democracy newsletter

Peoples Democracy newsletter

The NDA’s War on Rural Poor

THE NDA government waged an incessant war on rural poor immediately after coming into power. As a key strategy of this war, the Modi-led government made an explicit commitment to remove any kind of State intervention which hinders the free play of market forces. The key elements of this strategy are allowing foreign and domestic private capital to poach the vast rural market through various means of market instruments. The precondition for such facilitation lies in the limiting the role of government agencies, systems that govern the economic activity in an agrarian economy.

Foundation Conference of Mid-Day-Meal Workers Federation Held in Bengaluru

THE foundation conference of Mid-Day-Meal Workers Federation of India – their first all India conference was held in Bengaluru from June 21-23, 2015. The city of Bengaluru which, in the recent years has witnessed large militant mobilisations of scheme workers including MDM workers has once again witnessed a massive mobilisation of Mid-Day-Meal workers on June 21 who had come from different parts of Karnataka to be part of a colorful rally of 10,000 Mid-Day-Meal workers, all clad in red, organised on the occasion of their first conference.

TAMILNADU: We Do Not Want Charity Give Us Our Rights!

THE second state conference of Tamilnadu Association for the Rights of All Types of Differently Abled and Caretakers (TARATDAC) was held in Kovilpatti from June 22-24. The conference started with a rally and public meeting on June 22 in the evening. Brinda Karat, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member participated in the rally and addressed the public meeting.  In her speech, she congratulated all the members, cadres and leaders of the organisation for the big struggles that had been carried out during the last three years to assert the rights of the differently abled persons.

Massive Convention at Guwahati Against Land Acquisition Ordinance

THE city of Guwahati witnessed a massive convention against Land Acquisition Ordinance, on June 19. The spacious auditorium of the District Library was packed up to its capacity and many of the participants had to take their seats on the floor. More than a thousand delegates attended the convention which was inaugurated by Hannan Mollah, general secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha.

Stop the Anti-People “Reforms” in Higher Education!

AN article in the previous issue of People’s Democracy had highlighted the agenda of “reforms” being systematically imposed on public funded higher education (‘Warning bells for India's Public Higher Education’, June 21, 2015). This agenda, started by the UPA government and being ever more aggressively pursued since the Modi regime took over, threatens to destroy public funded higher education and chain it irrevocably to the interests of for-profit private players, domestic and foreign.

Smart Cities and Urban Mirages

PRIME Minister Modi recently launched one of his pet programmes, namely setting up 100 “smart cities,” along with plans for upgrading 500 towns and cities (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation or AMRUT), and a pledge to provide housing for all by 2022, requiring around 20 million units by the 75th anniversary of Indian independence.

The Spectre of the Thirties

THE Reserve Bank of India, as is to be expected, has been denying that its governor Raghuram Rajan had ever suggested that the world was facing the possibility of a 1930s-type Great Depression. Members of the “global financial community” are not supposed to say such things; so even if Dr Rajan did, a denial was inevitable.The point however is not whether Rajan actually said this. The point is not even whether the world would actually slip into a 1930s-type depression.

Achche Din for Corporates and Sangh Parivar, Bure Din with a Vengeance for the Masses - (3)

In sharp contrast to the massive concessions showered on the corporate that we saw in these columns last week, is the series of policies and steps taken by the Modi regime to squeeze the people. They make an even longer list. Some of the glaring ones are as follows:SQUEEZING THE PEOPLE·                     A concerted drive to kill the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is on. The tone was set by Modi’s hand-picked NITI Aayog, which roundly termed this whole scheme as ‘waste’.

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