THE stain of corruption, nepotism and crony capitalism is enveloping the Modi government and the BJP state governments. Narendra Modi and the BJP had made the massive corruption under the UPA government their main plank in the Lok Sabha election campaign. Narendra Modi had promised to put an end to the loot and corruption under Congress rule. After the completion of one year of the BJP government, speaking at a rally in Mathura district, Modi claimed that he had not guaranteed acche din for those who looted the nation; for them it was bure din.

THE central executive committee (CEC) of Adivasi Adhikar Rashtriya Manch (AARM) in its meeting held on June 13-14, in New Delhi, resolved to organise struggles against the Modi government's offensive on adivasi communities. The aggressive moves to reverse or eliminate hard won rights including the Forest Rights Act, PESAA, constitutional protections under the Fifth and Sixth Schedule are reflected in the recently adopted Mines & Minerals (Development & Regulation) Amendment Bill 2015.

IN one of the most gruesome racial attacks that we have heard in recent times, a 21-year old white man had shot dead nine Afro-Americans, who were attending a Bible study at the AME Church in Charleston. This is indeed more horrendous than the bomb attack on the 16th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, by the KKK (white-supremacist Ku Klux Klan), a tragedy that had galvanised the Civil Rights Movement in the US. In that attack, four girls died and it was termed as a 'terrorist act'.

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.

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.