Contemporary Hindutva and The Murder of Gandhiji

ON October 2, 2014 the Modi government launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and dedicated it to Gandhiji. A sketch of the bust and the spectacles of Gandhiji were used by the government to appropriate the legacy of Gandhiji. This attempt to appropriate Gandhiji by the political representatives of the Sangh Parivar was exposed two months later. Sakshi Maharaj, a member of parliament from the BJP, called Nathuram Godse, the murderer of Gandhiji, a patriot and a martyr.

New Patent Policy: Surrendering to US Industry Pressure

AMONG notable hyper activities of Prime Minister Modi is his rush to change most important acts and policies of the country intended to please foreign corporate entities. One such move is to change our intellectual property rights system to make it more suitable to the US multinational giants.

Thane-Palghar: CPI(M) Surmounts Heavy Odds To Make Headway in ZP/PS Polls

JANUARY 30, 2015 – the martyrdom day of Mahatma Gandhi – was the day when the election results of the zilla parishads and tehsil panchayat samitis of the newly formed Palghar and Thane districts were declared. The polling took place two days earlier on January 28. The two new districts were belatedly formed on August 15, 2014, when the erstwhile Thane district was bifurcated.

CPI(M) Contests Three Seats in Delhi Elections

THE CPI (M) has fielded three candidates for the forthcoming Delhi state assembly polls: Ranjit Tiwari from Karawal Nagar; Madhu Diwakar from Burari and Prem Chand from Dwarka. As mentioned elsewhere in the paper, seven Left parties will be supporting each others’ candidates on 14 seats.

The CPI (M) has appealed to the people of the constituencies from where its candidates are contesting to vote for them on the basis of the Party’s record of struggle for the rights of the working class, other toilers and women and its steadfast opposition to all kinds of communalism.

Left Parties Contest Jointly in Delhi Elections

Seven Left Parties – CPI, CPI(M), CPI(M-L) Liberation, AIFB, SUCI (C), RSP and Socialist Party (India) have issued the following statement on January 30THE forthcoming Delhi assembly elections are being held in the background of formation of the Modi led BJP central government last year. The Modi government is vehemently pushing forward the neo-liberal agenda as a kind of pay back to the corporates for their support in the elections. The union budget has provided big tax concessions to corporates and the upper middle class.

CPI(M) Uttar Pradesh State Conference Held

THE 21st conference of CPI(M) Uttar Pradesh State Committee, held in Bulandshahr from January 10-12, gave a clarion call to end stagnation in the Party and intensify people’s struggles against the twin danger of neo-liberalism and communalism. The Bulandshahr district committee of the Party made elaborate arrangements to make the three-day conference a success and an unforgettable event. The conference venue was named after Captain Lakshmi Sehgal. On the first day of the conference, a public meeting was organised at the Exhibition Ground in the city.

Who Will Benefit from Changes in Our IP Regime?

DURING Barack Obama’s visit to India, one of the important promises Prime Minister Modi made to the US President was related to the conflict between US and India on intellectual property rights (IPR). The Joint Indo-US statement is unambiguous about whose interests matter most to the BJP government. In the name of making the country’s IPR regime investor friendly, the Modi government is promising to meet the US demands that the previous governments were unwilling to accept. So far, India’s publicly stated position was that there is no need to change the intellectual property (IP) regime.

GROWTH AND HUNGER

INDIA, we are constantly reminded, is one of the more rapidly growing economies of the world at present; and even though the growth rate has come down somewhat of late, official figures show that it still remains quite high. What is less talked about however is the fact that the magnitude of hunger in India today exceeds that of even sub-Saharan Africa, which is generally considered to be among the poorest regions of the world; and it also exceeds that of what are officially categorised as “the least developed countries”.

New Series for Economic Data: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

SO goes an old English saying. Statistics are prone to manipulation by the powers that be. Such manipulation is often used to portray a normally bad economic situation, particularly those aspects that concern the livelihood health of our people, in a rosy light. The recent change in the base year, the point of reference to measure changes in economic parameters, to calculate India’s GDP and other indicators is a case in point.

The Criminal Approach of the Shanta Kumar Committee Report

ON January 1, 2015 there were 3.68 crore tonnes of foodgrains in India's godowns. This is around one third more than the January buffer stock norm. Buffer stocks are decided for four different quarters of the year. Recently the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs reduced the norms for the buffer stock for two quarters. It was brought down for the January to April quarter from a norm of 25 million tonnes to 21.4 million tonnes, the norm for the quarter starting April has been reduced from 21.20 million tonnes to 21.04 million tonnes. The reduction of the norm has policy implications.

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