2018

On February 27, 2018, former Lok Sabha Member Prabodh Panda, 72, who was the Secretary of the CPI’s West Bengal State Council, breathed his last after a massive heart attack in the morning at the CPI’s State headquarters in Bhupesh Bhavan, Kolkata.
The national President of the All India Kisan Sabha and the All India Anganwadi Workers Union, he was a member of the CPI’s National Executive and National Council.
Elected to the 13th Lok Sabha from West Bengal’s Purva Medinipur district, (…)

POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
One can of worms after another is opening in the banking industry. If a diamond merchant has defrauded public sector banks of over eleven thousand crore rupees, or a liquor baron of nine thousand crore rupees, there are smaller operators whose ‘modest’ achievements have been under four thousand crore rupees. As these skeletons tumble out of the NDA cupboard, there is a strident cry for privatising the banking industry. The Assocham has demanded privatisation, big (…)

by Y.P. Singh
It is well known that the banking system in India is deposit-oriented in contrast to the capital-driven banking system in the developed world. More than 80 per cent of the deposits in the banks belong to the common man. Public sector banks hold huge financial resources in terms of deposits employing very small amount of capital (approximately Rs 20,000 crores). This is why the corporates and industrialists want the privatisation of the public sector banks.
While public (…)

MUSINGS
When Yogi Adityanath was appointed the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, I’d commented it would drag along disasters to such an extent that even the basic level of survival would get impossible. Doomsday! See what’s been unfolding. Hundreds of children and even new- borns dying in hospitals. Encounter killings. Communal clashes under all possible garbs. Hounding of the minority communities in the most blatant of ways. Build-up for another round of partitioning with the Right-wing (…)

by Bhartendu Kumar Singh
When India welcomed the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) heads for this year’s Republic Day parade, it also sought to re-invent the Look East Policy (LEP) commissioned 25 years ago, amply reflected in the Delhi Declaration signed along with the ASEAN states. However, the China factor looms large with an unassailable lead in building-up relations with the ASEAN group. This factor, somehow missing in the Delhi Declaration, could derail India’s efforts (…)

Hardly Ten Months after Honouring the Visiting US President, the Saudis are open to a Russian-Chinese Consortium Investing in the upcoming Aramco IPO
In the slideshow that is Middle Eastern politics, the series of still images seldom add up to make an enduring narrative. And the probability is high that when an indelible image appears, it might go unnoticed—such as Russia and Saudi Arabia wrapping up huge energy deals on Wednesday (February 14) underscoring a new narrative in regional and (…)

by Monaem Sarker
Contemporary global phenomenon has engulfed many corners of the globe resulting in a state of uncertainty for the innocent masses who are victims of extremist violence and radical religious fundamentalism particularly exploited by religious bigotry and blood-thirsty politics.
The latter half of the 20th century has been relatively calm since the end of the Second World War and more so by the demise of the Cold War era. As a writer and observant political worker, one has (…)

by Ram Puniyani
What should be the attitude of the leaders’ visits to places of worship? The matter is very complex in a society like that of India where the hold of religion on the society has been strong and is becoming stronger. In many Western countries where Christianity is the religion of the majority, the visits to churches by most of the people have been declining and one does not hear much about this being a political issue at all. The matter has come to the fore once again as (…)

True income disparity cannot be captured by the World Inequality Report because the impact of the black economy is not taken into account.
The World Inequality Report (WIR) released last week shows that “India’s top one per cent earners received 22 per cent of the national income in 2014”. Simultaneously, the latest data on direct taxes released by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) shows that 9690 individuals paid tax exceeding Rs 1 crore. Only one individual paid tax exceeding Rs (…)

IMPRESSIONS
Confidence, authoritativeness and clear warning signals echoed from China’s published statements on the Maldives crisis. Keep off, it tells the UN. Any military intervention will be strongly resisted, it tells India. This is the new China rising to world leadership at a speed that is both remarkable and worrying.
Usually China does this quietly with no grand-standing. This was seen recently with deep-sea spying equipment in the Pacific Ocean. Powerful acoustic censors were (…)