2011

The following was the lead piece in ML update, the weekly news magazine of the CPI-ML (Liberation), in its issue of October 11 to 17, 2011. It is being reproduced with due acknowledgement.
For the past three weeks, a very remarkable protest has been unfolding at the heart of the US economic power and global capitalism. Thousands of American people have ‘occupied’ a site near Wall Street, and hundreds of solidarity actions and sit-ins have followed both in the US and in other countries. (…)

by SASWAT PATTANAYAK
The homeless and the Hippies, the socialists and the students, the communists and the commoners—the Wall Street has been occupied for good by the countless human beings demanding dignity of life denied to them under American capitalism. Every disenfranchised minority is now decrying the citadel of private capital, greed and monstrosity. And contrary to White House assertions and corporate media verdicts, the defamed Wall Street has been denied a bail-out—by the people (…)

The Indian polity needs the Left in order not only to provide an alternative to the Right, represented by the BJP and the Congress, but to stop close cooperation between the two which has of late seen new dimensions of collaboration on several political, economic and social issues. Who knows they may eventually form a coalition around a common social constituency and support of the market economy?
Political Status
IN the General Election 2009, the Left representation was reduced. In the (…)

This refers to an article “The Neoliberal Revolution” by Anand Teltumbde (Mainstream, September 17, 2011) in which he has lampooned the Hazare movement against corruption as a well-crafted stratagem in counter-revolution. The article gives the impression that the Indian revolution was on march and about to knock at the portals of Red Fort when a naïve and befuddled Gandhian put a halt to it and thus played a treacherous role for the toiling masses of India. The Anna team’s movement against (…)

by A.K. VERMA
The recent strategy of team Anna to take the Congress by the horns in the Hisar Lok Sabha by-poll took the party completely by surprise and bewilderment. This is evident from the fact that the Congress chose to over-react to Anna’s anti-Congressism. From Team Anna’s perspective, the move was designed to test the possible outcome of the civil society taking on the political society on corruption and Jan Lokpal in the larger arena of political contestations in five States next (…)

Anna Hazare has given a call to the people of Hisar to vote out the Congress from the constituency in the by-election. The only reason for his campaign against the Congress is that the party has not given him in writing that it would back his Jan Lokpal Bill to be passed in the next session of Parliament. The BJP and some other smaller parties have assured their support to Anna in writing. Is Anna justified in asking for letters of support from political parties when a note was provided to (…)

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman’s opinion-piece on the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests could as well have been written about the Indian political elites’ visceral reaction to Anna Hazare’s war on corruption. Look at the similarities. Both are manifestations of the popular revulsion against greed—“the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a per cent”, as Krugman writes.
Obviously, there has been a lot of “police (…)

NCPRI FOUNDER MEMBER’S INTERVIEW TO PAMELA PHILIPOSE
‘Let’s not forget that when we talk of corruption, we are also looking at huge amounts of corruption outside the government today,’ says Aruna Roy. These are busy days for Aruna Roy, 65, founder member of the National Campaign for the People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) and the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), with the Jan Lokpal and the need to check corruption emerging as one of the big concerns before India today. The woman, (…)

Several noted personalities in different fields of activity have recently departed from our midst.
GHAZAL’S golden voice was stilled when Jagjit Singh, 70, passed away on October 10 in Mumbai’s Lilavati Hospital where he was admitted on September 18 after suffering a brain haemorrhage; PM Manmohan Singh, in his tribute, aptly pointed out that Jagjit Singh, “by making ghazals accessible to everyone, …… gave joy and pleasure to millions of music lovers in India and abroad”. Founder of Apple (…)

[October 20 this year marks the fortyninth anniversary of the Chinese aggression on India. On this occasion we are carrying two pieces of N.C. on the subject—the first is from his ‘New Delhi Skyline’ published in Mainstream seven days after the invasion, and the second was written at the time of the thirtieth anniversary of the military attack in 1992.]
FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
What Invasion has Shown Up.
Need for World Publicity
A fresh appraisal of values has overtaken New Delhi with (…)