2011

by Pushpa M. Bhargava
In the Catholic Church, for anyone to be canonised, the person must have performed two miracles, a miracle being an action or an effect which can be explained only by direct intervention of a divine power that can defy all reason and laws of science. So we now hear of the late Pope John Paul II being canonised as he is believed to have cured a woman of Parkinson’s Disease.
This is reminiscent of two miracles said to have been performed, in retrospect, by Mother (…)

Tt was reported in the print media that under the CPI-M rule of the last 34 years in this State (West Bengal) 34 events of mass murder were organised either directly by the police resorting to wanton firing on the crowds consisting of Opposition party members or by the armed “harmads” of the CPI-M to seek political revenge or to establish political control over the areas lost to the Opposition party through elections. In the latter incidents the police force aided, abetted and assisted the (…)

by A.D. Manikandan
Kerala has a long history of foodgrains deficit, especially in rice. For instance, deficit in rice has increased steadily in the State from 45 per cent to 85 per cent between 1957 and 2008. However, not enough attention has been paid to mitigate the food insecurity problem in the State in the context where there has been a large scale decline in the area and production of paddy. This paper gives a theoretical analysis on the application of the NREGS in the agricultural (…)

The revenue receipt of the Union Government for 2011-12 is estimated at Rs 7.9 lakh crores and net borrowing at Rs 4.1 lakh crores. The Central Plan outlay is estimated at Rs 5.9 lakh crores. In other words, borrow funds account for 52 per cent of the total receipts and finances 70 per cent of the Plan outlay. If the government depends on borrowings to finance the bulk of the Plan outlay there will be serious limitations in raising the quantum of expenditure on various develop-ment heads. (…)

Recently the Prime Minister said that corruption was a by-product of coalition politics. This raises the following questions: does corruption take place only under coalition politics? Was corruption absent earlier when there was dominance of the Congress? There were dishonest actions under the governments of Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. Then why has a person like Manmohan Singh made such a reckless statement? It is an open declaration against those classes which are marginalised (…)

The following article, by one of the CPI-M’s intellectual pillars, appeared in The Indian Express (March 17, 2011). We are reproducing it with due acknowledgement alongwith a reply by a noted Left-wing journalist and writer who has sent it for publication in Mainstream.
India has witnessed a veritable social transfor-mation in the 20th century. A society characterised for millennia by institutionalised inequality in its most grotesque forms, like “untouchability” and “unseeability”, has (…)

In a recent article, eminent economist and CPI-M ideologue Prabhat Patnaik has contended that Nandigram and Singur were just “tragic episodes” that “do not represent an iota of shift on the part of the Left to any alternative, abridged, regime of rights”. (Italics in original) He also asserts that “the Left, in short, is the only consistent force that works in the direction of carrying forward the long democratic revolution in our country. The Left is different from all of them because it (…)

The following article was written quite sometime back but could not be used earlier for unavoidable reasons. It is being published here as its contents remain valid even now.
The jury of the people in Bihar has given the verdict for truncated development. This development template constitutes road infrastructure, bicycles to school-going girls and conditional cash transfer on certain social development entities. The operational and linking magical password to accessibility to this edited (…)

On March 26 this year we are observing the fortieth anniversary of the Bangladesh liberation struggle that was launched on that day in 1971 when the Pakistan Army began massive repression on the people of East Pakistan. To mark the occasion we are reproducing the following poem by a participant in the Bangladesh liberation struggle. It was published in Mainstream (April 10, 1971).
by Sikandar Abu Jafar
The battle shall go on—
Our battle, the people’s battle,
this battle shall go on! (…)

The offshore earthquake (measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale, one of the largest ever recorded) near Japan’s eastern coast last Friday, March 11, 2011—that unleashed a ferocious tsunami slamming the coastal areas in the east, killing countless people while sweeping away boats, cars and homes and causing widespread fires burning out of control—has brought untold misery in that highly developed nation always prepared for natural and manmade disasters. But what is of more serious concern and (…)