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Editorial |
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Down With These Undeclared Emergencies !
June 26, 2010 will mark the 35th anniversary of the imposition of the infamous Emergency. Formally speaking, there has been no second imposition of Emergency since 1975. The Congress party that had imposed Emergency in 1975 suffered its first defeat at the Centre in 1977, in the first post-Emergency election. On the face of it, it may therefore appear that the ruling classes and their parties have drawn their lessons and we can look back at the 1975 Emergency as an aberration. But a closer look at the state of our democracy clearly reveals that 1975 was no aberration but a trend-setter. Indian democracy is now permanently embellished with several undeclared mini emergencies.....Full text
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Commentary |
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Indo-US ‘Strategic Dialogue’:
Binding India Closer in Imperialism’s Embrace
KK
The Indo-US Strategic Dialogue that has taken off early this June in Washinton DC, capital of the United States, is an attempt to bring various key Indian sectors closer into the US embrace. The process, begun during President Bush’s visit to India, with the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture being launched alongside negotiations towards the Nuke Deal, is now being taken much further and deeper......Full text
Nitish Kumar Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai?
DB
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been angered no end by the appearance of advertisements in Bihar newspapers showing him together with Narendra Modi. The advertisements were issued on the occasion of the BJP’s national executive meeting and state rally held in Patna on June 12-13. An infuriated Nitish Kumar not only threatened to take legal action against the people who placed the advertisements but also cancelled a dinner he was scheduled to host in honour of the BJP leaders. And now it turns out he has also returned Rs. 5 crore that he had received from Gujarat as donation for Kosi flood victims......Full text
Message from West Bengal Municipal Polls
On May 30, urban as well as semi-urban West Bengal (many municipalities are still considerably rural) voted to elect 81 municipal bodies across the state. Unlike panchayat elections, municipal elections are not held simultaneously all over the state – many municipalities have a different electoral calendar. Yet as municipal elections go, this was surely the biggest round of elections covering the metropolis of Kolkata and its predominantly middle-class neighbourhood Bidhan Nagar (Salt Lake) as well as modest sub-divisional and block headquarter towns in peripheral districts. The results have predictably been disastrous for the ruling Left Front. Its writ now runs in only 18 of these 81 municipal bodies, just a third of what the Left Front had won five years ago......Full text
Mangalore Air Crash and Gyaneshwari Express Tragedy:
Will We Ever Know the Truth?
KK
In the month of May, within a week of each other, two terrible accidents took a heavy toll of human lives – first the air crash at Mangalore airport and then the Gyaneshwari Express accident near Jhargram in West Midnapore district of West Bengal. While mourning the huge loss of human lives in both cases, every citizen would certainly seek to fix responsibility for such accidents and know the truth about them. A month later, as we write these lines, are we closer to knowing and acknowledging the truth and fixing responsibility?.....Full text
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Cover Feature |
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The Bhopal Story:
Corporate Genocide, Judicial Treachery, Appeasement of Imperialism
Kavita Krishnan
More than 25 years after the infamous Bhopal Gas Disaster, the verdict of a trial court in Bhopal is nothing but a cruel mockery of justice. With charges already diluted by the Supreme Court of India, the trial court verdict could only be a formal burial of justice. Not only does the verdict insult the victims of one of the world’s worst industrial disasters by letting off the mighty CEOs who were the chief perpetrators either scot-free or with a ridiculously light sentence, it amounts to an assurance to MNCs they will enjoy total impunity in India even when their negligence and violations of regulations leads to loss of thousands of Indian lives and injury to several thousand more......Full text
Bhopal: When Corporations Subvert Democracy
Gopal Krishna
The June 7 verdict by the Bhopal court sets a precedent for the worst of corporate crimes and even nuclear disasters too to be treated like a traffic accident. Bhopal’s verdict was constrained because of the order of Justice A.M. Ahmadi Bench of the Supreme Court dated 13 September 1996 in which the charges against Indian officials of Union Carbide India Limited (subsidiary majority owned by Union Carbide Corporation) were diluted. Since February 2001, the culpability lies with the Dow Chemical Company which took over Union Carbide Corporation-USA.....Full text
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Article |
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Whither the CPI(M):
The Rhetoric of Rectification and Beyond
Political Observer
The repeated electoral debacles suffered by the CPI(M) in the recent past have triggered a veritable churning in CPI(M) circles. The CPI(M) has never recognized any theoretical debate or practical criticism or questioning of the role, policies and priorities of state governments led by it from any Left quarter. Even after Singur and Nadigram, when sympathetic Left intellectuals too began to openly question the CPI(M)’s role and understanding, the party’s initial and rather instinctive response was to disown all those intellectuals and dogmatically dismiss all those debates as anti-industry peasant romanticism and anti-Left conspiracy.....Full text
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Working Class |
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Air Corporation Employees’ Strike:
Thwart the Government’s Attempts to Develop “No-TU Zones” in Public and Govt. Sectors
Rajiv Dimri
Air Corporation employees’ flash strike from 25th May starkly exposed the murky state of affairs in the aviation industry. Against the backdrop of the May 22 Mangalore air crash, the government, management and the media have all conspired to project the strike as an act of insensitivity on the part of the Air Corporation employees. But just one look at the sequence of events leading to the strike is sufficient for any rational observer to judge who is at fault......Full text
Spontaneous Outburst of Rail Workers at Jamalpur Workshop in Bihar
Rabi Sen
The Jamalpur Railway workshop in Bihar (Eastern Railway) witnessed an unprecedented outburst of railway workers on 4 June 2010. Never in its history of 148 years, had the workshop experienced a workers’ outburst of this magnitude. The incident took place over the death of Mahendera Mandal, a rail worker of Jamalpur workshop. At about 8 AM he fell from his bicycle due to stone chips lying on the road and was run over by a rushing sand loaded truck. The stone chips and the sand-loaded truck all belonged to a contractor......Full text
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Campus |
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Undeclared Emergency in University Campuses
Tapas Ranjan Saha
Brazen violation of democratic rights and freedom of expression appears to be seamlessly institutionalized as a norm in university campuses across the country. As the UPA govt bulldozes its commercialization agenda to restructure the existing universities, curbing students’ rights, student organizations and student unions has become its overriding priority to pre-empt all organized protest from the student community. Campuses are in a state of undeclared emergency – student unions remain virtually banned in all major Central Universities. Introduced in the name of ‘cleaning up of student politics’, Lyngdoh recommendations became another tool to restrict student activism, stall elections in a vibrant campus like JNU, while its recommendations of mandatory student union elections in all campuses is given a quiet burial, reaffirming Lyngdoh Committee’s hidden intentions. In this context it is important to highlight the recent developments in some of the prestigious campuses of the country......Full text
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Updates |
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Punjab:
Popular Struggles and Left Assertion
Punjab is going through a lot of turmoil. The state which is known as the granary of India is now in the grip of an acute agrarian crisis. Reeling under spiralling debts, marginal peasants and agricultural labourers in many parts of Punjab are being driven out of agriculture. According to Prof. Sukhpal of Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, around 2.5 lakh households have been pushed out of agriculture during 1995-2005 and 7,500 new households have joined the category of rich farmers with landholding exceeding 25 acres.....Full text
Uttar Pradesh:
Mounting State Repression in Maya Raj
ON 13 May, Mayawati completed 3 years in office. In these three years, the BSP has systematised an extremely repressive regime in the state with steady erosion of all democratic rights.....Full text
Odisha :
RSS Goons Attack CPI(ML) Leader in Kalahandi :
Police Station Gheraoed in Protest
In protest against the brutal attack by RSS, BJP and BJD goons on Orissa state committee member Com Nilanjan Bhattacharya and demolition of tribal and dalit Christian houses in Ulladani village panchayat of Rampur block in Kalahandi district, nearly 500 activists of CPI(ML) gheraoed Kalahandi police station on 19 June. The CPI(ML) has been fighting for last four years for land and housing rights of local tribal and dalit Christian people.....Full text
Delhi :
AICCTU Leads Determined Struggle in Wazirpur Ind. Area
A workers' struggle has been on for past several months in the Wazirpur industrial area in Delhi. The workers of W.C. Steel factory have been fighting a protracted struggle for ensuring their basic mandated rights and facilities as the owner of the factory continues to deny them even the minimum wages. The struggle started in January with a petition submitted to the labour minister who is yet to take any action on the matter. With the Delhi government, labourv office and courts all siding with the recalcitrant owner, the workers faced retrenchments and all kinds of threats.....Full text
Bihar :
Rural Poor Resist Pro-BJP Feudal Conspiracy to Stop Construction of Rural Road in Patna
LIKE the Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), Bihar Chief Minister too has a scheme of construction of rural roads in the name of “Mukhyamantri Gram Sadak Yojana” (Chief Minister Rural Road Scheme). But the scheme of a 300 metre road linking village Ghurnabigha in Paliganj to the main road, which was recommended by the local CPI(ML) MLA and approvedin 2006 itself could not be completed because of the stubborn resistance pro-BJP feudal elements.....Full text
Karnataka :
AICCTU Spearheads Struggle of Rice Mill Workers in Gangavati
RICE mill workers in Gangavati are on the path of struggles against illegal closures and denial of ESI and PF benefits. There is no semblance of implementation of any labour law in the entire region, where more than 10,000 workers are employed in rice mills. They work in pathetic conditions where not even muster rolls are being maintained. On 20 May, hundreds of workers gheraoed the office of the local BJP MLA stressing their demands. Industrial disputes and other legal proceedings are going on. In the meanwhile, workers are exerting pressure on the administration, the MP and MLAs.....Full text
Puducherry :
Movement for the Roofless
Shri Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry is getting ready to celebrate the centenary of Shri Aurobindo’s arrival in the Union Territory. Shri Aurobindo, a great freedom fighter and poet and philosopher who had inspired many young Indian patriots in the battle for national liberation from the clutches of British colonialism, had reached this French Protectorate to evade the dragnets of British Rule.....Full text
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Heritage |
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Martyrs' Column Unveiled
35th Anniversary of Historic Ghorhuan Martyrdom Day!
ON 3rd June 1975, weeks before the infamous Emergency, fifteen brave fighters of the people including Comrades Virad Manjhi, Gyaneshwar Yadav and Rambabu Yadav had inscribed a new chapter in the epic battle for liberation of Indian people. When encircled by the CRPF at Ghorhuan village in Masaurhi block of Patna District, they chose to embrace martyrdom rather than slipping away from the encirclement. For 18 long hours they fought a heroic battle with the combined might of the police and paramilitary forces like the CRP and BMP.....Full text .
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International |
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End the Siege of Gaza!
Srilata Swaminathan
SRAEL'S blatant act of piracy when its navy viciously attacked and captured the Free Gaza flotilla on May 31 in international waters, killing 9 unarmed activists and injuring dozens more, has not only blown the lid off its nefarious and highhanded siege of Gaza but exposed to the world the brutalities that it has been inflicting on the hapless Palestinians for decades. This blockade of the sea coast off Gaza began over three years ago and is just one more way that Israel is trying to crush the Palestinian people and take over their lands at all......Full text
World Economic Crisis: Act II Scene I
Glimpses of Unfolding Turbulence in Greece
Arindam Sen
“The collapse of the [international] financial system is real, and the crisis is far from over”, George Soros said at a conference in Vienna on June 10. “We have just entered Act II of the drama”, he added. Indeed, after a brief and uneasy calm the fury of the crisis of capital is back with a vengeance, exactly as Marxists had predicted it would.....Full text
Resurgent Workers’ Movement in China
Arindam Sen
ANT to have a glimpse of the core of the "Made in China" electronics export hub? Welcome to the Longhua complex of Foxconn, the renowned manufacturers of components for renowned multinationals like Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, Sony and Dell. Located just outside Shenzhen in China, it spans three square kilometers and is criss-crossed by tree-lined streets with a water fountain at the centre, a hospital, a host of restaurants, a swimming pool surrounded by palm trees, banks and a bookstore among huge factory buildings and towering dormitories – all for the workers.....Full text
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Cover |
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Make the July 7 All-India Strike of Rural Workers A Great Success!
Rural poor brothers and sisters,
Ruling parties of various hues come to us during every election, and take away our votes after promising a better future. It is the majority votes of India’s rural poor that forms governments, yet as soon as power is grabbed, the very same governments forget us and all our needs and aspirations. In this regard, it is difficult to find any distinction among all governments whether at the centre or in the states. It is as if betrayal is another name for governance.....Full text
Jose Saramago: Communist Storyteller
José Saramago, the first ever Portuguese writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998, passed away on 18 June. He was 87. Saramago was born in 1922 into a peasant family in Azinhaga, a village in Ribatejo, northeast of Lisbon. When he was two, they moved to the capital, where his father José, an artilleryman in the first world war, found a job as a traffic policeman and his mother worked as a domestic cleaner. After the 1926 coup d'etat overthrew the republic, António de Salazar rose to power with his fascist militias and PIDE secret police. “Small Memories”, Saramago's memoir, describes his family's sordid living conditions in Lisbon and hints at a coercive submission within the household to the fascist slogan of "God, Fatherland, Family".....Full text
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