Why Shoot the Messenger?

THE National Alliance of Journalists and Delhi Union of Journalists, in a statement issued on January 8, have jointly condemned the registering of an FIR against Tribune reporter Rachna Khaira and her sources for her expose of leaks in the Aadhar system. We believe the reporter should be commended for investigating and bringing to light the easy access that touts and hackers have to the UIDAI’s allegedly impenetrable data site and its availability for as little as Rs 500 to anyone who wants it.

CITU Denounces Govt’s Move on Limitless FDI in Air-India & Retail Trade

THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), in a statement issued on January 11, has denounced the government’s announcement of allowing 49 per cent FDI in the country’s national carrier – Air India. Modi government had already decided to push Air India for wholesale privatisation. And to expedite such move for privatization, the government has now made this announcement of permitting 49 per cent FDI.

CITU Denounces Vindictive Action on Journalist for Exposing Systemic Fault in Aadhar

THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions, in a statement issued on January 10, has denounced the government’s move in registering FIR against the journalist of Tribune, Rachna Khaira and her sources for exposing the leakage-prone systemic fault in Aadhar administration.

BJP’s Jumla Will Not Pass Muster in Tripura

THE people of Tripura, forged in the fire of prolonged mass movement against the British-like ‘divide and rule’ policy of the Centre, will never budge an inch from their strong stand in favour of the Left Front government, leading them to comprehensive development based on the unity and integrity of the state’s mixed population of tribals and non-tribals including the minority communities.

INCREASING INCIDENTS OF LYNCHINGS: Bhumi Adhikar Andolan Fact-Finding Team Visits Rajasthan

A FACT-FINDING team under the banner of Bhumi Adhikar Andolan visited Bharatpur, Alwar, Rajsamand and Udaipur in Rajasthan on January 6-7, 2018 to look into the increasing incidents of lynching and attacks in the name of gau-raksha, encounter killings, deliberate communal polarisation and attacks on Muslims in the state.

Arun Jaitley on Electoral Bonds

ARUN Jaitley had outlined a scheme of electoral bonds in his budget speech on February 2, 2017. Now, exactly 11 months later, the notification of the scheme and some details of it have finally been announced in a Press Information Bureau release on January 2, 2018. Along with this release, Jaitley himself has also written an explanation-cum-defence of the scheme, from which it is clear that the scheme, far from countering the threat to democracy arising from large-scale corporate funding of elections, does not even address this issue.

Why the 2G Judgement is Wrong

THE Special Court judge Saini in his judgements running into thousands of pages on the 2G spectrum issue, seems to believe that let alone criminality, there was nothing wrong with the procedures that A Raja and his cronies adopted. His world, in which the allotment of 2G licenses or spectrum occurred, appears to be in a parallel universe from that in which the Controller of Auditor General (CAG), the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court operated. All of them found A Raja and his close associates guilty of arbitrary changing of rules to help certain favoured companies.

Netanyahu Not Welcome

THE prime minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting India from January 14. His official visit is not something which is to be welcomed. The coalition headed by Netanyahu is the most right-wing government that Israel has had. It consists of ultraright Jewish parties who openly advocate expulsion of the Palestinian people from the occupied territories and treating the Arabs within the borders of Israel as second-class citizens.The Netanyahu government has legalised the private lands expropriated from Palestinians.

End Mandatory Aadhar

THE Tribune newspaper published an investigative report on January 4 about how its reporter could get access to details of more than one billion Aadhar numbers. The reporter paid Rs 500 through Paytm to a vendor after which a gateway was created with a login ID and password which enabled her to get any name, address, photo, phone number and email-id of a person registered with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).Though biometric data was not made available, this explosive revelation has debunked the stand of UIDAI and the central government that its database canno

Why are Iranians Protesting?

IRAN is witnessing unprecedented protest demonstrations for the past one week. Hundreds of thousands of people are on the streets demanding a better life. This is the first time in eight years, since the protests against alleged electoral fraud in 2009, that Iran is once again witnessing such protests and unrest. According to official statistics released by the government, more than 20 people have died and hundreds were injured in the protests. Thousands more were detained by the security forces.

Search form

Peoples Democracy newsletter