Editorial

To Weather the Crisis India Must Reverse Economic Policies

The brave official rhetoric of India remaining insulated from the ‘made in USA’ economic crisis has now officially given way to a measured discourse of caution. On November 3, in a meeting with top corporate heads Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described the crisis as ‘unprecedented’ and cautioned that the global downturn triggered by the US financial crisis would prove to be ‘more severe and prolonged’ than expected earlier. He also talked about the need to minimize the impact of the financial crisis on the real economy and appealed to corporate heads to avoid any ‘knee-jerk reaction’. A group of ministers has been set up to monitor the ‘abnormal situation’ on a daily basis and a former chief economist of the IMF, Raghuram G Rajan has been named as a special economic adviser for the government. ...Full text

Special Feature

Just The Tip Won’t Do:

Expose The Whole Iceberg of Sanghi Terror

Kavita Krishnan

No longer can the Sangh Parivar and BJP ever disown its role in terrorism. A former firebrand ABVP leader and so-called ‘sadhvi’, Pragya Singh Thakur, has been arrested for her role in the Malegaon blasts of September 2006 as well as in the more recent Modasa blasts. Subsequently, more sadhus and Sangh-affiliated organisations like the Abhinav Bharat have come under the scanner. Even more ominously, two ex-Army officers are implicated in the blasts, and it has come to light that an institution called the Bhonsala Military School in Nagpur (a branch of the Bhonsala Military Academy in Nashik) has been imparting arms training to the Bajrang Dal. The Maharashtra ATS has indicated that these forces might have had a hand in other blasts too.....Full text

Jamia Teachers' Demand a thorough Probe into the Special Cell's 'Gallantry'

(A Statement by the Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Group - JTSG)

The recent revelations by the CBI to the Sessions Court that the Special Cell had falsely implicated two Muslim youths, Irshad Ali and Mohammad Qamar as Al-Badr terrorists raises serious questions over the methods and motives of the Special Cell. The CBI has recommended severe punishment for the Cell's officers Ravinder Kumar Tyagi – the recipient of the President's Gallantry award at this year's Republic Day Parade – and Vinay Tyagi and Subhash Vats, who forged and fabricated evidence to prove that Ali and Qamar were terrorists. It has turned out that both men were actually Intelligence Bureau informers and that they were punished by the Special Cell for noncompliance with their orders.....Full text

Feature

Who Is Afraid of the Fighting Youth of Bihar?

Dipankar Bhattacharya

Even as the anti-terrorist squad of Maharashtra police has corroborated the long-suspected involvement of Sangh outfits in the blasts that had rocked Malegaon two years ago, students and workers from Bihar continue to be subjected to relentless fascistic assaults unleashed by the Senas led by the uncle-nephew duo, Bal and Raj Thackeray. And as we go to press, the trigger-happy encounter-crazy Mumbai police too seem to have begun flexing its muscle against the migrant youth from Bihar. While the Sena goons are allowed a free hand to wreak havoc, and Raj Thackeray enjoys the highest level of state security, the migrant youth of Bihar are subjected to ever greater insecurity and injustice. Over the last ten days as many as four young men from Bihar – two job-seekers and two workers – have been killed in Maharashtra, three by MNS or Shiv Sena goons and one by the Mumbai police.....Full text

Student Movement Against MNS-Shiv Sena Fascism 

While parties of the UPA-NDA combine, ruling at Patna and Delhi earned the ire of Bihar’s younger generation for their hypocritical lip-service against the violence of the MNS-Shiv Sena against North Indians in Maharashtra, nothing could suppress the spontaneous student protests, and AISA, RYA and the CPI(ML) emerged as the natural voice and vehicle of resistance....Full text

Article

Financial Tsunami in US:
Investigating the Root Causes and Broader Implications

Part II

Arindam Sen

In our last issue we discussed late capitalism’s strategic response to the stagnation that reappeared in the early 1970s after roughly a quarter century of post-war prosperity. This escape route allowed the system to limp forward in the usual uneven fashion, but the resultant bubbles in the FIRE sectors (finance, insurance and real estate) failed to reinvigorate the real economy.....Full text

Special Report

AIALA Third National Conference: A Resounding Success

As the delegates and other activists started arriving in the city of Ballia for the Third National Conference of AIALA, the city suddenly shook itself awake in surprise at the red wave in town. It was clear that Ballia was witnessing an assertion of the politics of the working classes indeed after a very long time, and many individuals and forces friendly to the Left, including the local leadership of CPI and CPI(M) came to express solidarity. Comrade Dharmdev Lal of CPI, veteran of the freedom struggle and  of the historic peasant and agricultural labourer struggles at Kudwa....Full text

Student Movement

Crackdown on Student Democracy in the Name of Lyngdoh Recommendations

The Lyngdoh Committee recommendations’ purported purpose was to ensure regular students’ union elections free of money and muscle power. Students all over the country are outraged by the fact that the harshest action invoking the Lyngdoh order has been to stay the students’ union elections in JNU: which has always followed a model election process, which students themselves have kept free of all malpractices.....Full text

W Bengal Diary

Justice for Tapasi

In 18 December 2006, the badly burnt body of 18-year-old Tapasi Malik (an activist of the movement against land grab) was found at the Nano site in Singur – a site where ‘night guards’ of the CPI(M) warded off protestors at night. CPI(M) cadre were suspected of having killed her, possibly after having raped her, but the CPI(M) spread canards claiming that she had been killed by a lover or had committed suicide due to a tiff with a lover. After much protest, the Chief Minister announced a CBI enquiry into the killing.....Full text

Gouripore Jute Mill : Workers fight for their legal PF dues

The indefinite hunger strike and dharna of the workers of Gouripore Jute Mills, in front of the Provident Fund Office, Titagarh, North 24 Parganas, which started on 10.11.2008 was temporarily deferred on the 3rd consecutive day i.e. 12.11.2008 after the PF Dept. gave some specific assurances and initiated steps for disbursement of the PF/Pensionary dues to the workers of the said mill....Full text

Adivasis Up in Arms Against State Repression in W Bengal

(Lalgarh in W Bengal seems to be another Nandigram in the making, with adivasis in revolt against state repression and land grab. On 2 November, a land mine explosion targeted West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Ram Vilas Paswan as they were returning from the inauguration of the Jindal Steel Works SEZ in Salboni in West Midnapore district. This was followed by a spate of police brutalities in the name of combing operations to locate Maoists, who were blamed for the blast....Full text

Report of the AISA Team’s Visit

Lalgarh is 49 kms away from Midnapore town. From Bhadutola crossing, the road leads straight into the forests, the last range of Chota Nagpur plateau. From Bhimpur onwards the roads are blocked by felled trees, from where Lalgarh Bazaar is still 10 kms away. However it is possible to circumvent the logs on motorcycle and advance towards Lalgarh. Our 15-member fact-finding team riding five motorcycles managed to reach Lalgarh Bazaar without any hassles....Full text

AICCTU takes up cudgels for tramway workers

The Calcutta Tramways Company Bus Drivers-O- Karmachari Samiti (CTCBDKS), the newest union (an affiliate of AICCTU) in the Calcutta Tramways Company (1978) Ltd, an undertaking under the Government of West Bengal, has created ripples among the staff and workers in the CTCL. This is yet another expression of rapid erosion of confidence-level of CITU, AITUC and INTUC unions among tram workers....Full text

International

Why I went to Grant Park on November 4

Over the past few months, I must admit I have felt like a recalcitrant hack. As a socialist I have argued furiously with friends and students about why they should not put their faith in Obama. How his servile agreement with McCain about the $700 billion bailout for the very corporations that he claims to attack was a forecasting of the economic direction of his presidency....Full text

Obama and 'Change': A Letter from the US

The 2008 election was historic as the United States (US) voters elected the first African American President. This is of immense importance in a country where African Americans had been systematically lynched for having the audacity to vote. In a country built using slave labour, it is the Blacks who built the White House. Now a Black man will reside in the White House....Full text

Obituary

Remembering I K Shukla

I knew Indu Kant Shukla, interacted, debated, discoursed, fought bitter fights together against the religious fundamentalism of the BJP variety, walked in rallies in US and organized with him on human rights questions. Unwittingly a camaraderie developed between him and me, in spite of our differences....Full text

Comrade Venkanna

Comrade Narra Venkateswara Rao, popularly known as Buggapadu Venkanna, 42, passed away on 13 November 2008 from a cardiac arrest....Full text

Comrade Murali

Comrade Gunuganti Murali, 32, of Kerchapalli village of Nalgonda district, died an untimely and accidental death due to electric shock at his home on 12 November 2008. He began his revolutionary journey with attraction towards the PWG and joined as a squad member....Full text

Comrade Ramji Rajbhar

Comrade Ramji Rajbhar, 50 passed away due to a sudden heart attack on 12 November. Comrade Rajbhar was a member of the Gazipur district standing committee and Secretary of the Bhadaura block. He joined the communist movement in 1997....Full text

Comrade Ashok’s Revolutionary Journey

Born on 12 August 1947 in Kawakole village of Nawada district, Narendra Sah was an intelligent student from a poor family. Drawn by the spring thunder of Naxalbari into revolutionary activism since 1969 itself, he became ‘Ashokji’ and this remained his life-long name. Arrested in 1971, he escaped in a daring and successful jail break bid....Full text

Red Salute to Comrade Ashok!

Dipankar Bhattacharya,

22 November 2008

Ten days after his most sudden and untimely demise, it is still quite difficult to believe that Comrade Ashok is no more, for he always radiated such great energy and enthusiasm, intellectual as well as physical. Ashokji can only be remembered as a comrade who brought an infectious smile and a powerhouse of energy and determination to wherever he went....Full text

Front Page

The Popular Momentum that Propelled Obama into US Presidency

 - Dipankar Bhattacharya

The emphatic victory of Barack Obama in the US Presidential elections has generated a great deal of interest and enthusiasm, a veritable ‘Obamania’, across the world. There are indeed several special aspects to this remarkable victory. That he is the first black person to be elected to the highest political office in the US; that his campaign emphasised ‘hope’ and ‘change’ at a time when the US is passing through an extremely gloomy period in its history, and, above all, that his arrival marks the much-awaited end of the hated Bush Presidency, and a decisive popular rejection of its hallmarks, have all added up to make this probably the most memorable election in recent American history....Full text