2011

by BIBHUTI MISHRA
About a year ago, Panditji left us for ever. We, who had followed him and worked under his guidance for more than three decades, were all of a sudden left to work without him. Though for a moment it seemed that we were helpless and leaderless, but we were mistaken. We had a flame lit by Panditji to guide us on to the path of national reconstruction and socialism
The experience of the last one year has confirmed that without Nehru’s ideals and ideas we cannot go ahead, (…)

by K.N. RAJ
The following is the text of the paper read by the distinguished economist and Director of the Delhi School of Economics at the symposium held in New Delhi to mark the first death anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru, May 27, 1965. Dr K.N. Raj, who passed away sometime ago, subsequently became the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Delhi.
Socialism, like democracy means now different things to different people. Almost everyone in India calls himself today a socialist. This (…)

BOOK REVIEW
Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Second Series, Vol. 42 (April 1-June 30, 1958) edited by Aditya Mukherjee and Mridula Mukherjee; Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, Teen Murti House, New Delhi; 2010; pp. 922; Rs 100.
Jawaharlal Nehru, throughout his days of the freedom struggle, was among a small band of leaders who strove not only for the country’s liberation from the yoke of colonialism but also had a socio-economic vision of independent India. In fact, he was the (…)

[(TRIBUTE
He was described as the “last of the towering personalities in Bihar’s communist movement”. Veteran freedom fighter and one of the pioneers in setting up the Communist Party of India in Bihar, Jagannath Sarkar, 92, breathed his last at his Patna residence last month (April 8, 2011) after protracted illness. He is survived by his wife Nilima, sons Abhijit (a scientist) and Gautam (consultant for a company in Bangalore), and daughter Usashi (a medical practitioner married to (…)

The last few days have caused considerable embarassment to the Union Government and the Congress party.
First came the blunder in including terror accused Wazhul Kamar Khan alies Murtaza Choudhary (he was allegedly involved in the 2003 Mulund blasts) in the list of 50 most-wanted fugitives that India had handed over to Pakistan (despite the fact that Khan was actually in this country and living in the densely populated Thane sub-city of Mumbai for years). The report in a newspaper (…)

The following is a piece written by S. Sudhakar Reddy, the CPI’s Deputy General Secretary, in response to the Mainstream editor’s request to pen down what he expects from the Trinamul Congress-Congress alliance that has just been elected to power in West Bengal under the leadership of TMC chief Mamata Banjerjee.
Now the elections are over in five States. The defeat of the Left in West Bengal is a big setback. Though it was expected that the Left could lose, still there is a great (…)

STATEMENT
The following is a statement by Era Sezhiyan, a former MP and erstwhile Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). It reached us late; but we are still using it in view of its continued relevance.
It is unfortunate that there had been reports about the unprecedented disquiet and discord in the deliberations of the PAC on April 28, in consideration of the Draft Report on the 2G scam. A Parliamentary Committee enjoys all the powers, privileges and immunities of the Houses (…)

WEST BENGAL The Trinamul Congress-Congress-SUCI alliance has made a clean sweep of the polls in West Bengal. The alliance or jote has won 227 of the 294 seats (Trinamul Congress 184, Congress 42 and SUCI 1) while the Left tally has nosedived from 235 to 62 (CPI-M 40, Forward Bloc 11, RSP 7, CPI 2, SP 1, DSP 1). As far as the two main contestans, the CPI-M and TMC, are concerned, their fortunes have reversed. In 2006, the CPI-M won 176 seats and the Trinamul 30. This time the CPI-M tally (…)

Indian reactions to the cold blooded assassination of unarmed Osama Bin Laden by American commandos in a quick, 40-minute operation in a three-storied mansion surrounded by a high wall in the garrison town Abbottabad not far away from Pakistan’s Military Academy, reflected the confusion and pusillanimity of the Indian foreign policy and continuous decline in its robust independence and moral stature which characterised the foreign policy in the earlier years of Jawaharlal Nehru and which (…)

Honourable Madam,
While I congratulate you on your spectacular victory in the just concluded Assembly Elections 2011 in West Bengal, I beg to articulate some aspirations and expectations of 24 per cent Scheduled Castes and six per cent Scheduled Tribes, who are by and large marginalised and alienated from the socio-economic development in the last 35 years. By the time this letter appears in print (if at all) you will be in saddle after being sworn in as the Chief Minister of the (…)