2012

The following is the lead article in ML Update (Vol 15, No 13, May 25-June 4, 2012), the weekly news magazine of the CPI-ML (Liberation). It is being reproduced here due to its relevance at present.
Even as the UPA Government celebrated the third anniversary of its second term with a report card claiming record foodgrains production and a dramatic decline in poverty, the country was treated to an unprecedented oil shock with the price of petrol shooting up by more than 10 per cent. A litre (…)

People demand Information
Before locating a mega or large project on the ground, the suitability of suggested or possible multiple sites is based upon site evaluation of each, which is a scientific-technical-managerial-administrative process. Comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the sites obtained by the evaluation studies determines final choice of the site, which is essentially a political decision. The final responsibility rests, as it should, with the political executive. (…)

Six municipalities in West Bengal went to polls earlier this month. The result: The Trinamul Congress (TMC) wrested four of them, three from the Left Front and one from the Congress, while the CPI-M and the Congress could retain their control in two—Haldia and Coopers Camp respectively.
The six civic bodies were spread across the whole State—Haldia and Panshkura in the south, Nalhati and Durgapur in the west, Dhupguri in the north and Coopers Camp in the centre. What would happen in the (…)

“Irrigation makes you free, irrigation makes you rich.” This we read in the Archives of Catalonia (Spain) in 1243. Such a statement, already valid in Europe and China at that time, remains more topical than ever in Asia, including India. The shift from rainfed to irrigated crops brings considerable socio-economic benefits to the local people, including small cultivators and landless labourers.
This was amply confirmed by the impact of canal irrigation under the British, in the (…)

It is the same old sequence of hartals, the same old exhibition of hooliganism and the same old relentless oppression by the state. Indeed, much of this sense of similarity has characterised the story of Bangladesh since it won independence in 1971. You may begin or end the story from whichever point you want to.
I have been seeing this pattern since the emergence of the country’s two main political parties, the Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). What the whole thing (…)

MUSINGS As it is there are other idiotic things to view, so why watch those television serials? Well, it’s this simple rationale that keeps me away from the small screen, unless that can’t-help-it type of situation arises. And last week-end when I did switch it on, it was Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate …that particular episode where victims of child abuse went about offloading, baring, throwing out unsettling details of those encounters.
That noon I sat glued to the small screen, listening (…)

IN PERSPECTIVE, LOOKING BEYOND THE OBVIOUS
by NADIM NIKHAT
The Supreme Court’s final verdict on April 12, 2011 on the Writ Petition (Civil) no. 95 of 2010 and 30 such other petitions, in almost two years with thirty day-long hearings, adjournments and arguments, has changed the way the RTE Act came into play.
The RTE Act has attempted to bring all primary schools under a universal umbrella of registration, regulation and standards. It has opened an opportunity for children of certain (…)

FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
The Joint Parliamentary Committee probing into the securities seam has inevitably to extend its protracted labours. The star character in the securities scandal, Harshad Mehta, having gone back on his previous position and publicly levelled a serious allegation of having paid the Prime Minister Rs 1 crore and have secured benefits in consequence, there was no escape for the JPC from brushing aside this latest development.
What has been entrusted to the JPC by (…)

Discord on NCTC
The federal issues in the Indian polity have come to the fore in recent times. They came up prominently when the proposal of the Union Home Ministry to set up a National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) was placed before the meeting of Chief Ministers convened by the Union Home Minster. Several Chief Ministers opposed the proposal tooth and nail. The Chief Ministers included not only the Chief Ministers of the States where the BJP, the main Opposition party at the Centre, is (…)

by ARCHITESH PANDA This article was written and sent to us soon after the Durban Climate Change Confrence last January but could not be used ealier. It is now being published on the occasion of the World Environment Day (June 5).
Introduction
After much debate, fight, extra days of negotiation, the Seventeenth Conference of Parties (COP 17) of the United Nations Framework Con-vention on Climate Change (UNFCC), concluded in Durban on January 10, 2012. The results have received mixed (…)