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.

JUNE 25 marked the 40th anniversary of the internal emergency which lasted for 19 months. The imposition of emergency was an infamous and dark chapter in the history of post-independent India. Indira Gandhi, who had won a huge majority in the 1971 Lok Sabha election, was faced with rising popular discontent which erupted in the form of various mass movements such as the Nav Nirman movement in Gujarat and the JP movement. This period also saw the biggest working class struggle in the form of the railway strike in May 1974 involving 17 lakh workers.

50 Years of Relentless Struggle
Sitaram Yechury

WITH this issue, People’s Democracy, the central organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), turns 50 years old! Since June 27, 1965, every week dated Sunday, People’s Democracy (PD) has come out regularly. Except when an issue was skipped (like on occasions when Party Congresses are held), the PD continued to reach its readers regularly during these 2,600 weeks.