Contents

Presidential Poll 2012 : Opportunist Realignment in Coalition Politics 

As an electoral contest, the July 2012 presidential election is no cliff-hanger, even if the BJP and some regional parties are trying to deny the Congress a walkover. Given the latest political alignment, Pranab Mukherjee seems all set to enter the Rashtrapati Bhavan as Pratibha Patil’s successor. What is of real interest is the curious pattern of the emerging political alignment ahead of the bigger battle scheduled in 2014. Both the leading coalitions, the UPA and the NDA, stand divided as do the Left Front and for that matter any potential coalition of regional parties....Full text

Who Killed Mohd. Qateel Siddiqi?

Mohd. Qateel Siddiqi of Darbhanga had been in jail since November 2011 after being arrested on charges of involvement in several blast cases. On 8 June, inside Yerawada jail in Pune, two gangsters, Sharad Mohol and Alok Bhalerao, are said to have strangled Qateel to death....Full text

Three Years of UPA-II

Insufferable Saga of Corruption and Economic Disaster

Even as the UPA government celebrated the third anniversary of its second term with a report card claiming record food grains production and a dramatic decline in poverty, the country was treated to an unprecedented oil shock with the price of petrol shooting up by more than 10 per cent. A litre of petrol now costs around Rs. 75, and with the value of the rupee depreciating almost every passing day in relation to dollar, the price of not only petrol but every imported item threatens to escalate relentlessly in the days to come....Full text

Coalgate Scam

PMO Paves the Way for Corporate Loot of Coal

A CAG report (the draft version of which has reached the media) has found that, during a period when the Coal Ministry was directly under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a massive coal allocation scam took place, that allowed a large number of private companies to acquire captive coal blocks at throwaway prices, thereby securing massive “windfall gains” to the tune of Rs. 1.80 lakh crore....Full text

Hike in Petrol Prices: Boosting Private Interest

Saurabh Naruka

The UPA led by Congress, which came to the power riding on the rhetoric of defending interests of the ‘common man’, continued its offensive on those interests with the Rs 7.54 hike in petrol prices on May 23, 2012. This steepest ever hike was partially rolled back by just Rs 2 (only 3 percent) in the wake of nationwide protests, even while crude oil prices internationally fell by more than 20 percent recently from its peak of $ 110/barrel in March 2012, compensating for the depreciated rupee in the process....Full text

Indian Economy in Deep Waters

Sukanta Mandal

The Indian economy is gripped by a veritable crisis. Agrarian woes are deepening, industrial growth is sharply dipping, inflation is persisting in the alarming zone, the unemployment rate is remaining chronically high, the fiscal deficit is defying all limits, the rupee is nose-diving against the dollar, exports are decelerating sharply with imports shooting up, and on top of it all, the country is all set to be on the brink of a sovereign debt crisis engendered by a serious Balance of Payment (BoP) crisis reminiscent of 1991,...Full text

The Exit of Brahmeshwar Singh

Brahmeshwar Singh, the founder of the notorious Ranveer Sena and the mastermind behind dozens of massacres perpetrated by the Sena in Shahabad and Magadh regions of Bihar between 1995 and 2000, was gunned down at Ara in the early hours of 1 June. The cremation took place in Patna on the next evening....Full text

Special Report

Comrade TP Chandrashekharan

Embodies the Spirit of the Communist Movement  

(A  JNU Students’ Union team comprising JNUSU President Sucheta De and JNUSU Councillor Shivani (both elected from All India Students’ Association – AISA) visited the family of martyred comrade TP Chandrashekharan on 1 June. They were accompanied by JNU students from Kerala, Lal and Sharad. CPI(ML) Liberation Central Committee member Kavita Krishnan from Delhi also accompanied the team. A report by Shivani Nag.)        

The CPI(M) organ People’s Democracy, denying any role in Comrade Comrade TP Chandrashekharan’s brutal murder, maintains that he and others who left CPI(M) to form the Revolutionary Marxist Party had displayed “a naked desire for position, parliamentary greed and absence of communist values.”...Full text

Updates

Another Milestone In PRICOL Workers’ Struggle : Tripartite Agreement Signed

Nilavan

A tripartite agreement at Pricol was signed on 8 June 2012. Struggles and agreements are not new in TU movement. In that case, how are the Pricol workers’ struggle and agreement exemplary? The government, labor department, TUs and many including our workers knew for sure that those with CPIML and AICCTU can take up any fight against any management vigorously, that they can face any assault and can emerge more powerfully again. But many had the question as to whether and how we would conclude the struggle....Full text

Convention against Koodankulam Nuke Plant

CPI(ML) held a convention in Tirunelveli in Tamilnadu on May 30 against the Koodankulam nuke project and state repression on the protestors. In Tirunelveli, police and administration are denying permission to any democratic protest against the nuke project and in support of the people of Idinthakarai....Full text

Campaign for Student-Youth Rights

(The AISA and RYA have undertaken an intensive countrywide campaign for students’ and youth rights – for education and employment, and against corruption and corporate loot. Despite the summer heat, students and youth in many states have begun campaigning daily, holding street plays, street corner meetings, and distributing leaflets. The campaign will culminate in a March to Parliament in August. We bring you some highlights from the ongoing campaign, based on inputs from Anmol Ratan from Delhi; Ramayan Ram from UP; and Abhyuday from Bihar.)       

Around 30 AISA activists of the three universities in Delhi – JNU, DU and Jamia Millia – began their campaign in the national capital on April 30, near the Patel Chest Hospital, near Delhi University’s North Campus....Full text

Obituary

Remembering a Departed Comrade: Dipankar Mukherjee

(A tribute by Prasenjit Bose, 18 June 2012, courtesy Pragoti.org)....Full text

International

Death From The Skies : Drone Warfare And The Obama Administration 

Meera Visvanathan

While accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009, the US President Barack Obama tried to set himself up as a moral man with the authority to speak about a ‘just war’. Addressing the assembled gathering at Stockholm and the world at large, he spoke of how, “Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct.....Full text 

Greece After Second Round Polls : Harder Struggles Ahead

Arindam Sen 

Following the inconclusive ballot of 6 May, the 18 June elections confronted the people of Greece with three basic platforms to chose from: to remain in the Eurozone and the EU and renegotiate the bail-out conditionalities, as espoused by New Democracy (ND) and PASOK, the traditional ruling parties; to remain in the Eurozone and the EU, but default unilaterally on debt and reject the Memorandum (the conditionalities) as proposed by SYRIZA, the rapidly developing militant Left; to reject the debt, the whole EU project, and the NATO with it, as espoused by the Communist Party....Full text

Sport

Gambling with Stars, Where is Artistry?

Somak Roychoudhury 

On the day when World and Euro Champions Spain started their Euro’12 campaign at Ukraine, 18 Spanish banks submitted to Helsinki seeking financial bail-out! Andre Iniesta’s words two years back at South Africa came alive once more. The Barcelona and Spain national team’s talismanic midfielder, after scoring the solitary goal in the final of FIFA World Cup’10, had reminded that in the midst of the euphoria was a reality where a large part of Spain’s people lived in poverty....Full text