2020

Poonthura fishing village near Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, where community transmission of Covid-19 pandemic is reported.

Covid pandemic is unprecedented in human history. Any disaster including the Spanish Flue of 1918 which infected 500 million people and claimed about 20 million lives, did not affect so many countries. The Second World War saw the death of about 70 million people, but did not involve every country in the world. The covid-19, despite lower death rates, about half a million so far, disrupted social lives and national economies in countries and regions of the world.
Disruption of lives in (…)

by Praveen Davar
India may be the only country in the world where the politicians keep returning to the past whenever faced with a crisis at home. When it comes to an India-China standoff the BJP’s propaganda machinery, backed especially by an obliging electronic media, moves to the top gear to take us back to 1962 and remind us of the military debacle suffered at the hands of China. This has been happening every year for the last three or four decades. This year, with the situation at LAC (…)

[Text of the memorandum submitted by CPI and eight other political parties - INC, RJD, CPI (M), CPI(ML), RLSP, VIP, HAM, LJD - to the Election Commission opposing the digital poll campaign. (received on 18 July 2020)]
To,
The Chief Election Commissioner,
Subject: Ensuring substantial public participation and providing equal opportunity to all opposition parties in 2020 Bihar legislative assembly election
Dear Sir,
We write to you today to draw your attention to the emergent health (…)

We, in Jan Adhikar Manch, Odisha, are deeply concerned that the Covid-19 pandemic is rapidly spreading in Odisha too. While reports in the mass media state that jail inmates are getting increasingly affected by the pandemic in states like Maharashtra and Assam, similar reports today claim that 33 under trial prisoners and 10 staff of Berhampur Circle Jail, District Ganjam have tested Covid-19 positive. Hence, we draw your attention to the condition of prisoners housed in various jails across the state and demand quick remedial measures.

The politics of State Power in India has taken the distinct form of declaring war on the people. The recent developments in our country bear testimony to it.
On March 13, 2020, Yogi Adityanath-led UP government gave its approval to Uttar Pradesh Recovery of Damage to Public and Private Property (UPRDPPP) Ordinance, 2020. The government’s decision came a day after the Supreme Court did not stay the Allahabad High Court order to the Lucknow administration to “forthwith” remove roadside “name (…)

In recent years there has been a very welcome and encouraging trend of looking beyond conventional indicators like GDP per capita and evaluating progress more on basis of genuine short-term and long-term welfare. In this wider and much better evaluation questions relating to non-fulfillment of basic needs of a significant section of people, damage done to health and environment and difficulties in spread of human values conducive to justice , equality, simplicity, sharing, peace and welfare (…)

Chinese import have thrown a spanner in the wheel of India’s economic progress per se and industrial manufacturing in particular. The Chinese import is so hard hitting on Indian industry that many manufacturers have become traders.
The impact of Chinese goods has been such that India is threatened to become a country of importers and traders with domestic factories either cutting down production or shutting down completely...The country can ill afford its industry including MSMEs to get (…)

A leopard, it is said, cannot change its spots. If it does, it ceases to be a leopard. This old proverb came back to the present writer’s mind when he came across a news item published in The Indian Express of July 14 with the headline: “Kerala CPM leaders give hero’s farewell to party leader convicted of murder.” What was it all about?
The CPI-M proudly calls itself a Stalinist party. And Stalinists show no mercy toward anyone who is, or is perceived to be, holding any view contrary to (…)

In the face of unfettered globalization, the rise of right-wing movements around the globe and the dangers of climate catastrophe, it seems easier to imagine the end of the world than an end to capitalism, growth and domination.