2012

A day after the ruling UPA Government at the Centre marked the third anniversary of its second stint under the Prime Ministership of Dr Manmohan Singh and barely 24 hours following the end of Parliament’s Budget session, the middle class has been dealt a severe blow by the steepest-ever increase in the price of petrol at one go.
The government representatives are claiming that this was done by the oil marketing companies (OMCs) since the petrol price was decontrolled two years ago in June (…)

Sam Walton, who created the largest and most powerful retail marketing organisation, died in 1992 as the richest man in America. Now his successors are just behind Bill Gates.
Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh in their report, ‘The Top 200: The Rise of Global Corporate Power’, issued by the Institute of Policy Studies, Washington D.C., September 25, 1996, wrote: “The annual sales of the Wal-Mart made its internal economy larger than the economy of 161 of the world’s countries— including (…)

On the occasion of Jawaharlal Nehru’s fortyeighth death anniversary on May 27, 2012, we remember the first PM of independent India by publishing the following excerpts from his writings and speeches. We are also reproducing the Editor’s Notebook that N.C. wrote on May 27, 1976 (it was carried in Mainstream, May 29, 1976) at the height of the Emergency, and a few articles and speeches by noted personalities published in this journal following Nehru’s demise.
Jawaharlal cannot become a (…)

FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
Twelve years ago Jawaharlal Nehru died is harness on May 27. Inevitably, much has changed in these twelve years among his people and in the humanity at large. He was not the man who would have preferred the status quo to change; and if the landscape and the skyline of his country have changed—at places beyond recognition—Nehru, had he been alive, would have tried to understand them, accelerate the process of change.
What we who belong to the generations after him (…)

It is an apparently cruel but basically comforting thought that in this world of ours nobody, howsoever cherished, continues to be missed, and life flows on with a resilience all its own, not even needing to mock at death which hurts sorely, but time heals the damage. There are however some hurts perhaps which remain congealed in the heart’s interstices. Souffrir passé; avoir souffert ne passé jamais. Jawaharlal Nehru died twelve years ago. The news came life a bolt from the blue, for though (…)

Is their long history, the Indian people have had two great love affairs. One was with Krishna of legend. The other was with a flesh-and-blood man of our own times, Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru knew how much he had received. He wrote about it in his will and testament. To deserve what he got, he gave abundantly. He wanted to be remembered as a “man who with all his mind and heart, loved India and the Indian people”.
Half of the people of India today have no personal experience of this (…)

by DEV DUTT
On that quiet, drowsy, white May afternoon, Nature broke down into paroxysms of fury and the Heart of India convulsed with sorrow.
Then, there was a pause—a short pause in the affairs of men in India, nay even the world—when the ashes of the departed leader were scattered over the soils and the waters of India amidst warm eulogies couched in soft accents.
Finally, Time and Life recovered, and pressed forward again. Symbols of bereavement began to gradually disappear. The (…)

It is a privilege for me to address this distinguished gathering of parliamentarians, authors, scholars and journalists, assembled here today to honour our first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, on his 96th birth anniversary. A little over twentyone years ago, he left us in deep desolation. But he has handed over to us a priceless legacy of his thoughts and writings which continue to live with and inspire us. Nehru dominated the post-war world scene as an outstanding visionary, humanist, (…)

The concept of progress is deeply embedded in most reading and writing of human history. At first glance it appears so obvious as modern life has so many comforts and conveniences that could not have been dreamed of just about five hundred years ago, not to mention five thousand years ago. But in a more specific context, if one was the compare war-ravaged Iraq at its worst in the early 21st century with the peak of the Mesopotamian civilisation several thousand years back, then there may be (…)

This is the third part of a four-part article on the current state of the Indian economy by Kobad Ghandy. The author is a Marxist/Maoist thinker, incarcerated in Tihar Jail; he has written two books: one on the Indian economy (Globalisation: Attack on India’s Sovereignty, 2004) and the other on the world economy (Capitalism in Coma, 2009). The first and second parts of this article appeared in this journal’s May 5, 2012 and May 19, 2012 issues respectively.
Agriculture and Industry: Going (…)