2015

I. Introduction
The Union Budget 2015-16 is in the same mould as the Budgets in the preceding years. The Finance Minister’s speech announces or mentions a whole host of schemes for different sections of the population. With a projected expenditure of Rs 17.77 lakh crores and a GDP of Rs 141.1 lakh crores, the expenditure is slated to be 12.6 per cent of the GDP. This is no small amount and out of this, a few hundred or a few thousand crores can be given to many popular schemes. Say, for (…)

Some aspects of this year’s Union Budget made it different from Budgets of previous years. In previous years it has been customary to compare the new fiscal year’s allocations for various Ministries, sectors and programmes with the allocations made for the previous years.
The most important aspect of a Budget is (or should be) regarding the impact it makes on the most vulnerable and poor people. In addition, it is also important to see its overall impact on economic well-being and (…)

Professor Ha-Joon Chang teaches economics at the Cambridge University and has authored a number of books such as Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Studies in Historical Perspective, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism, 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism, etc. The February 18 issue of Frontline has carried a longish interview with him. V. Sridhar of the Frontline asked him: “India is now led by a Right-wing government, led by a party that (…)

IMPRESSIONS
Kerala could well become another Bengal for the Communist Party of India-Marxist. The party’s State Secretary, Pinarayi Vijayan, demitted office last week after a 17-year reign. The party lost ground during that period, though the initial years were promising. In the 2004 Lok Sabha election, the first after he had fully settled down to the job, Kerala’s Left Front won 18 of 20 seats. In 2009, with his style of functioning a talking point, the result was four out of 20. In 2014, (…)

From N.C.’s Writings
The following was the ‘New Delhi Skyline’ written by N.C. fifty years ago on March 2, 1965 and published in Mainstream (March 6, 1965). Even after fifty years the relevance of its contents remains undiminished.
Shastri’s New Torments • Language: Pandora’s Box
When the Finance Minister rose to present his Budget before the Lok Sabha on the last working day of February, there was premonition that the ill-starred Cabinet headed by Sri Lal Bhahdur Shastri might be in (…)

Full marks to the arrogance of China! It summons the Indian envoy at Beijing and conveys its displeasure over the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Arunachal Pradesh. The territory is part of India and was never claimed by China till some years ago when it attained the military prowess worth the name.
Beijing told our ambassador Ashok Kantha that Modi’s visit “undermined China’s territorial sovereignty right and interests”. Not long ago, Beijing had begun stapling visas of the (…)

by Nazimuddin Siddique
In a series of violence in Assam the latest deadly massacre came in the fateful evening of December 23, 2014 when Bodo militants unleashed their barbarism through the barrels of sophisticated AK series weapons upon the marginalised Adivasi community of the State. The brutality on unarmed villagers was unleashed in Kokrajhar, Chirang, Udalguri and Sonitpur districts of Assam within the span of a few hours. The rampage occurred largely along the northern border of the (…)

WOMEN’S WORLD
by Neetu Choudhary
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign on ‘beti bachao, beti padhao’ is merely a top-up on numerous scattered schemes that already exist in the name of women’s welfare or development. Though the schemes in themselves need not be questioned given the gender-insensitive country that we are, yet an introspection must not be ruled out. We must ask ourselves: ‘do we really need these schemes, which are nothing more than a mask over our inability to respond to (…)

by Harikrishnan B., Navneet Sharma and Pradeep Nair
The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has miles to go before he sleeps, especially when he is such a slow walker. As Chief Minister of Gujarat for more than a decade, he could not reach out to Vapi which is only 200 miles away from Gandhinagar. The recent Census of India (2011) shows Vapi with the lowest sex ratio with 734 women per 1000 men. The ‘ideal’ Gujarati pride finds a pitiable 12th position in the States’ ranking list according to (…)

The idea and practice of democracy has always remained a subject of political negotiation, revision and reinvention. Its history is inseparable from the history of people’s assertions, protests, struggles, and increased consciousness of rights and liberation. Though the nature and issues raised by people’s protests and social movements are not free from controversies and internal differences, they remain an important force of socio-economic and political transfor-mations in society. (…)