2020

Excerpt reproduced with permission from: Arun Kumar’s latest book Indian Economy’s Greatest Crisis: Impact of Coronavirus and the Road Ahead (Penguin Random House India) December 2020 Available via Amazon
"The economies of the world have faced crises from time to time and weathered the storms. There are wars in which production gets disturbed and there are recessions when the economies go into reverse gear. The question is: Will the experience of how to deal with these crises help in the (…)

by Isaac Deutscher (March 16, 1953)
Everywhere the same question: Who will rule Russia? If a triumvirate, can it long endure or does the Soviet structure demand a single head? Will there be orderly elimination or violence? If violence, is there a man in Russia able to use war on his colleagues, win and consolidate supreme power, and, through it all, hold together the Union and the Empire?
There are no answers yet. There may not be for a long time. But there will be hints. And to evaluate (…)

by James M. Dorsey *
Populated at the time by fluent Hebrew speakers, the Israel desk of Armenia’s foreign ministry waited back in 1991— in the immediate wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union—for a phone call that never came. The ministry was convinced that Israel, with whom Armenia shared an experience of genocide, were natural allies. The min¬istry waited in vain. Israel never made the call. That shared experience could not compete with Armenia’s Turkic nemesis, Azerbaijan, with which (…)

* Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Dec 12, 2020
* Gandhi’s Civil Disobedience Movement In 1930, German Social Democracy, and Franz Josef Furtwängler | Nirode K. Barooah
* Change in Post-Socialist Slovakia | Brigita Schmögnerová

Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Dec 12, 2020
It is astonishing that the Supreme Court of India gave permission to the Government of Narendra Modi to go ahead with the foundation laying ceremony for the new Parliament and Central Vista complex while saying that no construction should begin. A clear contradiction in terms. The Court’s granting of the nod, while litigation is underway on ‘change of land use’ is very unfortunate. Due process is not the way this government functions, the (…)

by Subhankar Gupta
Nitai Basu (real name Nityagopal Basu), the last activist of historic peasant struggle of Kakdwip led by the All India Krishak Sabha in West Bengal within a year after India achieved independence passed away on December 6, 2020. AIKS was the peasant front of undivided Communist Party of India. He was 90.
After the Tebhaga movement was called off by the WB unit of AIKS and state CPI leadership under compelling circumstances, a large number of peasants landless and (…)

by Murzban Jal
As for the individual, everyone is a child of its time; so philosophy also is its time apprehended in thoughts. It is just as foolish to fancy that any philosophy can transcend its present world, as that an individual could leap out of his time or jump over Rhodes. If a theory transgresses its time, and builds up a world as it ought to be, it has an existence merely in the unstable element of opinion, which gives room to every wandering fancy.
G.W. F. Hegel.
Only a (…)

It is amazing that a resolution of the stand-off with farmers’ movements has been delayed for so long. A government which never misses a chance to announce its patriotism has allowed issues which harm the national interests of India to fester for so long. I am writing this note on the morning of December 10. A satisfactory solution acceptable to all should have been announced at least a week back and an agreement reached on this basis.
The solution can have the following three basic (…)

December 9, 2020
Press Release
Due to restrictions of Covid protocol, only a five-member delegation is permitted to meet the Hon’ble President of India.
More than twenty political parties in the country have extended their support to the ongoing historic farmers’ struggles and asked for the repeal of the retrograde Agri-Laws and the Electricity Amendment Bill.
We are releasing the text of the memorandum submitted by the five-member delegation to the President of India for (…)

by Nirode K. Barooah
[ While almost the whole German popular press denounced the Indian Civil Disobedience movement under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi in 1930 Franz Josef Furtwängler (1894-1964), the International Secretary of the General German Trade Union Federation (ADGB) tried to persuade his fellow Social Democrats and Trade-unionists to understand Gandhi and the Indian Freedom movement on the ground of anti-imperialism. Furtwängler who had toured India during 1926—27 as a member (…)