2020

by Tikaram Sharma
After the massive victory of Right Reaction and blow to the left and democratic forces, particularly to Communists in the 2019 elections, well wishers and good numbers of Communist cadres and sympathizers are realizing the need of reunification of Communist Movement. They believe that only Communists can defeat the Right Reactionary forces. The CPI has always been in its favor of reunification and conveyed its decision to the CPI (M) and other Communist groups to respond. (…)

by Partha Sen
The prospect of the Prime Minister addressing the nation at 8 PM (no matter on which date) sends a shiver down my spine. One cannot but recall the demonetization experience of November 2016. In spite of that unpleasant experience, we expected a well thought-out policy response to the corona pandemic that was knocking at India’s door. Hamstrung by decades of neglect of its public health system by the various ruling parties, the outcome was going to be grim. Nevertheless, one (…)

by Bobby Ramakant, Surabhi Agarwal and Sandeep Pandey
Ram Shankar met with a fatal hit-and-run accident in rural area of Hardoi district of Uttar Pradesh on 16 April, 2020 and was referred by the District Hospital to Trauma Centre of King George’s Medical University (KGMU) in Lucknow. He could not be admitted there and was referred to nearby Balrampur Hospital. From there he was referred to Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia hospital. He was denied admission at these government facilities as only (…)

Ranabir Samaddar delivered the Biblab Chakraborty Memorial Lecture (2018) titled The Present Time of Chaos. One of his seminal observations in the lecture was that “a historical sense is important in a situation of chaos, as the conditions of chaos do not exist in some ethereal space outside of history”.
Very recently, Calcutta Research Group (CRG), under the editorship of Ranabir Samaddar, has brought out a collection of essays around the lives and politics of migrant workers in India, (…)

by Indranil De
The policy and planning in post-colonial countries have always been biased towards the urban elites (Chaplin, 2011). It is very much evident from the division of urban areas between well-served and unserved areas . The well served areas emerged as formal areas of residence and unserved areas as informal areas or slums. The Indian policymakers have always maintained a hierarchy between formal and informal sectors, with informal as subordinate to the formal. This is not only (…)

by Akhilendra Pratap Singh
The country has entered the second round of the lockdown. This time too, if some economic activities are omitted, then there is nothing special in the guidelines issued by the government for the relief of the common man. Whatever the reasoning, the truth is that the Prime Minister had announced the lockdown last time without any preparation and this time also there is no roadmap to deal with the hardships of the people created by this epidemic. Despite being (…)

by Murzban Jal
Faust: .... And so, who are you, after all?
Mephistopheles: I am part of the power which forever wills evil and forever works good.
In 1919 in the period of the Great Revolutions, Milkhail Bulgakov, the Russian author of The White Guard and the famous The Master and Margarita whose political sympathies lay on the other side of the philosophical barricades, namely on the side of monarchy and the anti-Bolshevik counterrevolution, called communism a «malevolent disease» (…)

DOCUMENT
PRESS STATEMENT RELEASED APRIL 30, 2020
Condemning Misuse of UAPA by Union Government during COVID-19 Pandemic and Standing in Solidarity with Individuals & Civil Society Organisations Experiencing Targeted Crackdown.
We, a group of activists and citizens of India, express our deep concern over the recent arrests on the false pretext that have been taking place using the regressive Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) by the (…)

DOCUMENT
Federation of Central Universities Teachers’ Associations (FEDCUTA)
Press Release; 26.4.2020
The FEDCUTA is concerned at the decision of the Government of India freezing the Dearness Allowance (DA) of Central Government employees and Dearness Relief (DR) of Central Government Pensioners at current levels till July 2021, which will also impact teaching and non-teaching staff of Central Universities and their affiliated Colleges.
The freezing of DA has at one stroke been (…)

IMPRESSIONS
The story is that a man used to walk up and down London’s glamorous Oxford Street with a placard proclaiming «the end is nigh.» The idea was to encourage people to repent their sins and prepare for the imminent apocalypse. What was only a spiritual note of caution then has now acquired real-life validity thanks to the corona virus. An Australian think-tank has predicted that human civilisation as we know it will come to an end in 2050. The end is indeed nigh.
The reason the (…)