Editorial

The challenge of shaping a new Nepal begins now…

The outcome of the April 10 elections in Nepal goes far beyond signalling the eventual end of the country's 240-year-old monarchy. ...Full text

Bhagat Singh Reigns in the Hearts of Indian People 

Pattabhi Sitaramayya, official historian of the Congress had noted that there was a time during the freedom struggle when “Bhagat Singh’s name was as widely known all over India and was as popular as Gandhi’s.” In the 60 years since Independence, India’s ruling class has done its best to erode that popularity and efface Bhagat Singh’s spirit, if not his name, from public memory. ....Full text

Commentary

National Mineral Policy 2008

After much deliberation, the UPA government has finally released the National Mineral Policy (NMP) 2008. This policy has been in the offing for quite some time, and considering the magnitude of the issues at stake, it was eagerly awaited. However, the NMP 2008 has come as an anticlimax, since it is amazingly devoid of clarity and detail. ....Full text

On the Supreme Court Verdict on OBC Quotas in Higher Education 
The Supreme Court (SC) finally gave its verdict, after nearly two years and 25 hearings, over the petition filed against the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006 on 10 April 2008. The five-judge bench upheld the Constitutional validity of 27 per cent Reservation in IITs, IIMs and other Central Educational Institutions(CEIs) ....Full text

West Bengal in Coimbatore
“Why, it’s not double standards, comrades, it’s dialectics!”

How do we explain opposing Tata in Kalinganagar and welcoming him in Singur? How do we oppose globalisation and imperialist capital in other areas of the country while endorsing both in West Bengal? It was in response to many such doubts aired by some delegates to the 19th all India congress of CPI(M) that the above remark was made by one of the most visible and articulate leaders of the party.....Full text

Special Feature

Democracy in South Asia

In the past three months, three of India’s neighbours have gone to polls. The high point, of course, is Nepal, which witnessed a historic triumph against the monarchy and a republican upsurge led by the CPN(M). Lal Bahadur Singh from Liberation and Ashok Kumar from Lokyuddh were eager observers of Nepal’s polls; in this feature, the former comments on the Nepal election experience. Bhutan’s polls, conducted by its King, presented a contrast. And while Pakistan’s polls brought Musharraf’s nearly decade-old regime to an end, its

new Government continues to face grim challenges. Farooq Tariq, Spokesperson, Labour Party Pakistan, writes on the post-poll situation in Pakistan. – Ed.

Republican Resurgence Led by the Red Flag in Nepal ...Full text

Royally Regimented Polls in Bhutan ...Full text

Post-Poll Pakistan ...Full text

Feature

Even as the prices of all essential commodities soar sky-high, the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister tell us that inflation is here to stay. According to these high priests of economic liberalisation, rising prices only reflect the global ..Full text

Inflation Deflates UPA’s Aam Aadmi Claims ..Full text

Sixth Pay Commission Recommendations: Behind the Hype of Hefty Increase 

Recently, there has been much big media hype about two packages of the UPA Government: the loan waiver for farmers and the other one was the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations. The UPA Government, getting more and more alienated from the aam admi ...Full text

State Terror

Citizens’ Convention Against Draconian Acts

The Forum for Democratic Initiatives, Delhi, organized a Citizens’ Convention titled ‘Undeclared Emergency? Special Security Legislations and the Making of a Police State’, in the backdrop of various State governments clamouring for Special Security Acts....Full text

STF Terror in UP: Communal Witch-Hunt 

In the name of nabbing those guilty of blasts at Varanasi or the serial blasts in Courts in the State on 23 November 2007, a communal witch-hunt is being whipped up in UP, and the victims are innocent young Muslim men; both those living inside UP and outside. The PUHR in UP ...Full text

Disband Salwa Judum and Other State-backed Private Militias

At a Chief Ministers' Conference on Internal Security last December, PM Manmohan Singh described "left-wing extremism" as the "single biggest security challenge" in the country; and referring to Naxalism as a "virus", he had asked state governments to "choke" Naxal infrastructure and "cripple" their activities ...Full text

Working Class

Struggles of tea garden workers in Assam

Sipped with lime and honey in expensive china by manor dwellers and savoured in tiny chipped glasses with milk and sugar by commuters in Indian railway stations, Assam tea is a household name for most lovers of the brew ...Full text

Interview with a Maruti Trade Unionist in Gurgaon on the eve of May Day

With the boom in car sales, automobile corporations are earning huge profits; but this is at the cost of ruthless exploitation of the workers in these factories. In the past few years, there have been many workers’ struggles in this sector: like the recent struggle in Hind Motors, West Bengal, the Honda workers’ struggle in Gurgaon in 2005, the struggle of Maruti workers in 2000-2001 in Gurgaon.....Full text

Construction Workers in Delhi March Against Price Rise

Flagging off the CPI(ML)’s fortnight-long campaign against price rise, construction workers in Delhi marched under the banner of All India Central Council of trade Unions (AICCTU) to the Delhi Secretariat ...Full text

Reports

Hisab do-Jawab do Rally in Jharkhand

Under a scorching sun on April 10, masses of people thronged the CPI(ML) Rally at Ranchi, spiritedly raising the questions of plunder, state repression and corruption in Jharkhand and demanding ‘Accountability and Answers’ (Hisab Do Jawab Do) from the ruling Madhu Koda Government...Full text

CPI (ML) 8th Bihar State Conference

The 8th Bihar State Conference of CPI(ML) was successfully held in Bettiah, Western Champaran from April 14-16. Though W Champaran has been an old centre of our work, this was the first time a major state level programme was ever held there. Comrades of Western and Eastern Champaran were involved in the Conference preparation – a challenging task ...Full text

Assembly Gherao in Tamil Nadu

In Tamil Nadu, the CPI(ML) held a massive Assembly Gherao on March 27, raising the burning issues of the toiling masses of the state. All over the state, the party took up a vigorous campaign in the three months towards the Rally. The demand for 2 acres of land for the rural poor, an election promise of the DMK government, is a burning question in the rural parts of TN, and has been thrown to oblivion by both opposition and ...Full text

AICCTU National Council Meet and other reports from the states ...Full text

Interview

In Conversation with David Barsamian

(Armenian American independent broadcaster and activist David Barsamian was in Pakistan and India recently. All those inside the US and outside who mistrust the ‘embedded’ and corporate-funded media count on Barsamian’s Alternative Radio for its in-depth interviews with scholars, writers and activists which critique capitalism and imperialism. Liberation interviewed Barsamian in Delhi.)  ...Full text