2013

REVIEW ARTICLE
The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth by Mark Mazzetti; New York: Penguin Press; 2013.
America has been at war for more than a decade. There is no end in sight to this new perpetual war. The battlefield is now the entire world. After 2001, the Bush Neoconservatives essentially declared a war against the entire globe, against whoever dared to oppose the Empire. In a larger sense, of course, this is but an extension of the war for (…)

COMMUNICATION
I have become aware, very belatedly alas, of a piece by Comrade Sailendra Nath Ghosh (Mainstream, April 16, 2011), which takes me to task for an article of mine “Why the Left Matters” (Mainstream, March 26, 2011). The only reason I can adduce for not reading Comrade Ghosh’s article when it was published is that I was myself located at the time in Thiruvananthapuram, working for the State Planning Board of the LDF Government in Kerala, and had at best sporadic access to (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
With Parliament rounding off the general debate on the Budget, this is the point of time when certain reflections on the government’s presentation of the economic crisis before the nation may be in order.
Right at the outset, there was both curiosity and appreciation on the Prime Minister having chosen a distinguished economist as his Finance Minister. An outsider in the arena of party politics, Dr Manmohan Singh raised expectations that he would present before the (…)

[(Veteran journalist Balraj Mehta, 92, passed away in New Delhi on June 19, 2013. He was suffering from a kidney ailment for some time. He is survived by his wife, children and grandchildren.
A noted analyst of economic and financial developments, he was an outspoken critic of the policy of liberalisation ushered in by the then Finance Minister and present Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, in 1991 and scathingly attacked it in his columns. He regularly contributed to the Economic and (…)

The following is the statement issued by the Convention in Defence of Economic Sovereignty, sponsored by the Left parties, in New Delhi on July 19, 1991. —Editor
The Convention in Defence of Economic Sovereignty, sponsored by the Left parties, categorically rejects the series or policy decisions announced by the Narasimha Rao Government to tackle the serious economic crisis facing the country. The two-step devaluation of the rupee by more than 20 per cent; the new trade policy measures; (…)

IMPRESSIONS
Margaret Thatcher was tougher and more imperialistic than Britain’s present Prime Minister, David Cameron, can ever be.
Back in the 1980s the Iron Lady tried to make some easy money by raising the tuition fees of foreign students in England. Most countries took it lying down. But Malaysia was not amused.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed was a medical doctor and a soft-spoken genteel personality to boot. But he had more iron in him than the reputed Lady of London. He was (…)

The geopolitics of Central Asia has begun shifting in anticipation of the NATO forces ending their combat role as well as their pullout from Afghanistan and the proposed establishment of nine American military bases in that country. Kyrgyzstan last month gave the final touch to its strategic decision to demand that the US should vacate the Manas military base near the capital Bishkek by July 11, 2014.
All signs are that Washington has accepted the Kyrgyz decision and does not propose to (…)

by Ashwin Jayanti
What did the players involved in the spot-fixing scandal do wrong? Did they betray public trust? Did you feel that the entertainment you were a spectator to was staged and not genuine? Have the rules of the game been violated? Have the players set a wrong example for the people watching the show? Is it a contemptible display of the greed of the players? Most importantly, why has this resulted in such a public outrage against the players and their acts?
Let us probe (…)

COMMUNICATION
It is a matter of great concern that the shortage of anti-snake venom (ASV) in government hospitals is endangering the life of snake-bite victims. This medicine is supposed to be available free to snake-bite victims (most of whom are poor) in government hospitals, but when this life-saving medicine is simply not available, snake-bite victims are pushed into a helpless situation. Many deaths are caused due to this.
At the time of the arrival of the monsoon hospitals should (…)

Last week one had tried to bring into focus just an idea of the tragedy that accompanied the disaster wrought by nature in Uttarakhand. In the past seven days the magnitude of what happened there has become clearer. Even as the Indian Air Force pilots and crew members along with the armed forces personnel are relentlessly carrying out the mission of rescue and evacuation of thousands of stranded pilgrims and tourists from remote and inaccessible mountainous areas, Manu Pubby in The Indian (…)