April 2009

A.B. Bardhan, as the octagenarian General Secretary of the Communist Party of India, is the seniormost Left leader in active politics today since the CPM patriarch, Jyoti Basu, is ailing and at 95 cannot undertake any strenuous assignment. In the following freewheeling interview with the Mainstream editor on March 31, 2009, Bardhan presents his view of the pre-election scenario and the Left perspective before the country at this point in time.
How do you view the pre-election scene? (…)

For eleven years the people in the Naga inhabited districts of Manipur have been living in peace ever since a ceasefire was declared between the Indian security forces and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isac-Muivah) or the NSCN (IM) in 1997. As a result a generation of children has grown up without knowledge or experience of the cordon-and-search operations which invariably resulted in human rights violations of villagers. These children had no idea what it was like to stand for (…)

There are several features of the coming Lok Sabha elections that jar and need to change.
Elections with Police Force
The first is the heavy deployment of force for conducting elections. One of the grave consequences of heavy deployment of force is to spread out the election process to two, three or four stages. This is how it has happened this time. This not only paralyses governance, because staff from all departments along with the local collectorate, subdivisional and block staff are (…)

Two hundred years of colonial rule in India had turned the richest country on earth into one of the poorest. The task was to make up the leeway by optimal use of the existing physical, human and financial resources and its continued renewal and upgradation. The colonial structure needed dismantling as it was the greatest stumbling block in unleashing the vast productive potential that the country possessed. The political class to whom power was bestowed could not countenance such dismantling (…)

A credit card named after the small plastic card issued enables its holder to buy goods and services based on the holders’ promise to pay for those goods and services. In this system, the issuer of the cards, whether a Bank or Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), grants a line of credit to the user from which the user borrows money for payment to the vendor and thus it becomes cash advance to the user. Normally, the purchases made by the card holder are to be paid in full each month. The (…)

The original call for Swaraj by Mahatma Gandhi a century ago sought freedom for India from colonial domination by the British. This call for Swaraj was intended for a geographical space known as India but for the millions of ordinary people who lived under condition of unfreedom in India. Some 40 years later South Asia attained Swaraj through the emergence of three independent nation-states of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Today, a century later South Asia is home to seven independent (…)

COMMUNICATION
Debabrata Bandyopadhyay has brought to bear his characteristic clarity and depth in analysing Gandhiji’s Hind Swaraj (Mainstream, March 7, 2009), which touches millions’ heart even after a century. Gandhiji’s views on mass education, however, were, in contrast, marked unfortunately by narrow vision, if not by sheer orthodoxy. With due respect for his gigantic stature and epic struggles for freedom, we are constrained to place the record straight. To drive the point home, let (…)

Tension is mounting day by day as the parties are gearing up for the election campaign. Even before any clear picture of the alignment of parties could emerge, there are ominous signs of violence threatening to break out as the campaign gets going.
On the very same day that Charan Singh had to face repeated disruption of his meetings in Madhya Pradesh, Indira Gandhi had to encounter violent attacks in North Bihar. Both have charged their immediate opponents for the attacks: Charan (…)

Since 2007, India and the European Union (EU) are negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA). The negotiations not only cover trade in goods but also services, rules pertaining to intellectual property rights, cross-border investments, competition policy, government procurement and regulatory issues.
The EU as a bloc is India’s largest trading partner. The EU accounts for around one-fifth of India’s total trade (23 per cent in 2007) whereas India contributes around 1.8 per cent of the (…)

The June 9, 1964 issue of Student Voice (published in Atlanta, GA), the newspaper of the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee), carried the following news report:
JACKSON, MISS.—A member of India’s Parliament was twice refused service at a Morrison’s cafeteria here, and was escorted away by police, the second time in a patrol wagon. On both occasions May 27-28, Dr Rammanohar Lohia was accompanied by White persons and was dressed in native garb. Lohia was here visiting integrated (…)