2014

by S.N. Sahu
Sunil Gupta deleted his surname to discard primordial identity of caste and displayed rare heroism in life in harnessing his academic insights and human capabilities for positive and constructive social change. He passed away at the age of 54 in which people look forward to lead a happy and prosperous life. It was no age to die. His life has been snatched away from us by unforeseen ailments which caused serious damage to his brain.
He combined the excellence of a great human (…)

by R. G. Gidadhubli
On April 17, 2014, the agreement reached at the Geneva meeting of representatives of the USA, EU, Ukraine and Russia offered a landmark hope of de-escalation of the Ukrainian crisis even under the prevailing sustained unrest by protestors at Euromaidan in Kiev and by pro-Russian separatists threatening civil war in the Eastern Ukrainian cities, namely, Kharkov, Donetsk etc. As an act of protest, while the NATO has already suspended cooperation with Moscow after Russia (…)

by N. V. K. Murthy
To understand the conflict between the West and Russia on the Ukraine problem, one has to go back to the beginning of the 20th century, or even earlier—to the last decades of the 19th century. When England was in the throes of the industrial revolution, and capitalism was developing fast, a German intellectual, named Karl Marx, was working on his famous book called Das Capital in the British Museum Library. Karl Marx and his collaborator and patron, Frederick Engles, (…)

When I proposed writing this piece even before polling for the 16th Parliament is concluded, a friend asked if it would not be wiser to await the outcome on May 16, 2014. Perhaps he is correct. But on the other hand, there are some benefits of “thinking through” or anticipating events, even if based upon gazing into a political crystal ball.
16th Parliament
By all indications, the ongoing general elections will see the decimation of the INC as a result of the anti-incumbency factor, the (…)

Narendra Modi, the BJP’s nominee for prime-ministership, dreams of ruling the Indian polity which is constitutionally based on the principles of democracy, secularism, federalism, socialism and justice. However, there is going to be a serious conflict of interests between the above mentioned fundamental principles of the Indian polity and Modi’s worldview which is controlled and dictated by the RSS, the most prominent protagonist of the politics of Hindutva. It is a critical issue as Modi (…)

The great Indian elections are in the last phase. Soon the election results will be announced and a new government will be formed on this basis in the world’s largest democracy. People have voted with high hopes and it is now for the elected representatives to live up to their high hopes. Whether they are on the side of the new government or in the Opposition, they should strive to strengthen democracy.
These elections have taken place in difficult conditions and it must be stated frankly (…)

EDITORIAL
with yesterday’s polling, when voters in 89 constituencies spread over nine States and Union Territories exercised their franchise, the seventh phase of the 16th Lok Sabha elections is over. Two more rounds of polling remain—on May 7 and 12—before the counting of votes begins and ends on May 16 to record the final outcome of these polls. As many as 44.28 crore voters out of the country’s 81.45 crore electorate have already voted in 438 Lok Sabha seats. In the remaining two phases (…)

COMMUNICATION
Sunil, the National General Secretary of the Samajvadi Jan Parishad and editor of Samayik Varta, breathed his last at New Delhi’s AIIMS hospital on April 21. Sunil will be remembered for long as one of the most inspiring socialist activists, ideologues and writers whose high ideals were fully in harmony with his actual living experiences. His life can be seen as an ever-continuing story of struggles as well as cons-tructive activities, all aimed at the realisation of (…)

The following article is being published on the occasion of May Day.
The modern working class is the product of the industrial revolution beginning with mid-18th century. But we can find workers’ activities and organisations even in the pre-industrial phases, when this class was still in the formative period.
Records of workers’ associations, guilds and unions are to be found in the 14th to 18th centuries. In 1345 a wool comber tried to organise a union of wage labourers in Florence (…)

All parties have broadly agreed on various aspects of the model code worked out by the Election Commission for a certain period before the elections. It has worked quite satisfactorily. Fortunately the Election Commission still remains in command. Recently when it denied the Central Government to make certain changes in some economic and subsidy policies (though the latter would adversely affect the poorer sections of society), its neutrality was not challenged. It has therefore come as a (…)