TWENTY five years ago, a child born in India had significantly better chances of survival than in neighbouring Nepal and Bangladesh. Twenty five years later, after neo-liberal reforms were implemented in India since 1991, both Nepal and Bangladesh have lower child mortality rates than India, ie, a child born in these countries are more likely to survive than in India. The above encapsulates the story of neo-liberal reforms in India and its impact on people's health.

THE newly elected LDF government of Kerala has successfully completed two and a half months in power, undertaking alternative development initiatives with the active participation and support of the people. The victory of the Left Democratic Front in Kerala is the result of the politics which the party and the front has consistently upheld. LDF fought the State assembly elections with an alternative policy against communalization and corporatization, and had won the battle with a comfortable margin.

THE formal adoption of the neo-liberal reforms programme by the Government of India (GOI) in 1991 had a far more pervasive impact on the education system and policy than is usually recognised. The commercialisation and marketisation of education put it outside the grasp of the majority of India’s population, 78 percent of whom were living on less than twenty rupees per day (Arjun Sengupta Committee report), and altered the concepts of knowledge, education and its curricular content.The democratic deficit was the most obvious feature of the National Policy of Education (NPE 86-92).

ON the call of the CPI(M) Central Committee, thousands of people took part in marches and rallies across the country from August 1 to 7 in solidarity with the Party cadres and Left Front activists in West Bengal who have been experiencing continuous violence and attacks ever since the Trinamool Congress took over the rein of the state five years ago. Twelve CPI(M) and Left Front members and supporters were killed during and after the 2016 state election, taking the total number of cadres and supporters killed to 186 since the 2011 assembly polls. Over 3,000 were injured during the period.

CHEER leaders of neo-liberalism have mounted a high crescendo campaign hailing that the last quarter century since Dr Manmohan Singh, as the finance minister, initiated the process of neo-liberal economic reforms in 1991 had created a India which would have been impossible otherwise.  Further, such reforms are the only way, we are being told, that India can move closer to the mythical El Dorado – a land where milk and honey flow freely.  An objective assessment of the condition of our people and the polity, as a consequence of these reforms, is, thus, in order.Indeed, the neo-liber