| |
Editorial |
 |
International Women's Day
And the Women's Movement in India
Woman is born in chains, but everywhere she is fighting to be free. It is a world-historic struggle being waged in different ways in different national settings.
In our country the peculiar Indian version of neoliberal model of growth preserves, profits from and in some cases reproduces in modified forms certain vestiges of feudalism in socio-economic structures, customs and value systems. The working people of India, women included, therefore have to suffer the worst of both worlds – feudal backwardness and obscurantism as well as modern capitalist expropriation and exploitation. Among them, it is women and children whose interests are most severely jeopardized in myriad ways, for example by the retreat of the neoliberal state from its welfare responsibilities and the state-sponsored corporate land-grab campaigns. In addition to the perennial violence of hunger, women are routinely subjected to all kinds of oppression, discrimination and sexual assaults, with people in high positions feeling free to indulge in such crimes and shielding other criminals. In this respect Congress-ruled Delhi and Rajasthan look exactly like, say, NDA-ruled Bihar and West Bengal under its first woman Chief Minister....Full text
| |
Commentary |
|
Karnataka's Porn Scandal:
Shame on BJP's Hypocrisy and Insult to Women
Arindam Sen
The recent 'porngate' scandal in Karnataka, in which three BJP Ministers were caught by a TV channel, viewing a porn clip inside the Assembly, has exposed the BJP's bankruptcy and moral double standards thoroughly. The Ministers in question have had to resign, but such damage control measures are far from adequate....Full text
Malevolent Mamata and the Dance of Death in West Bengal
Arindam Sen
Safar Molla, an enterprising marginal farmer of Kaltikuri village in Bardhaman district, had lost his father at an early age and had been maintaining the family since then against heavy odds. Thanks to spiralling input prices including irrigation costs, he had to take loans and leave some bills unpaid, expecting a bumper paddy crop that would allow him to pay back. And a bumper harvest it indeed was! But he could not be happy. The market price was clearly lower than his cultivation costs. With no help from the government forthcoming, there was no way he could pay the bills and save his and his family’s honour. On 18 November he consumed some of the pesticide he had bought to protect his well-cared crops. He was only 17. Before and after him some 30 peasants, including a few sharecroppers, committed suicide since the middle of October last year under similar circumstances....Full text
Punish All Responsible for the West Bengal Government's
Patriarchal Offensive on a Rape Complainant
The response of the West Bengal Government to a recent complaint of gang rape in the state capital, is yet another instance that has underlined the deeply patriarchal biases embedded in institutions of power and in the state machinery....Full text
Stop Making Muslim Youth Pawns of the
Cynical Game Between Competing Investigative Agencies
The recent case of Naqee Ahmad from Darbhanga, Bihar, is a reminder of how Muslim youth are becoming pawns in the cynical and cruel game played by competing anti-terror agencies. This young man, till recently an informer helping the Delhi Police Special Cell with their investigations in blast cases, turned overnight into one of the main accused by the Maharashtra ATS in the 13/7 Mumbai blast case....Full text
Ethics In The Indian Media 2011
Excerpts from a Report by TheHoot.org
Terror Reporting
No mea culpa
On November 16, 2011 seven Muslims arrested for the Malegaon 2006 blasts were released on bail. Media frenzy accompanied their release, with photographers telling them to make the V sign. The same media had accepted the Maharashtra ATS's claims that these Muslims had planted the bombs that killed 37 of their own community, giving hardly any space to claims made by Malegaon's Muslims that they were innocent. At the release, the lawyers of the accused and community leaders from Malegaon were being hounded for interviews; there was no sign of the ATS. Neither were they asked for an explanation; nor did the media think it necessary to explain their own conduct....Full text
| |
Feature |
|
Towards a Double Dip Recession and Unemployment?
Capital and Labour in the Neoliberal World Order
Last month we published excerpts from latest documents by the IMF and the WEF to show how they view the unfolding financial and economic crisis. Continuing our reportage, we bring you here some of the more important issues raised in a couple of more recent reports from two other international institutions of capital: the UN and the ILO. In both reports, a sense of panic (to quote, the likelihood of “a worldwide credit crunch and financial market crash ... reminiscent of the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers” and “a dramatic downturn in employment and a further significant aggravation of social unrest”) and helplessness ( there being “no simple solutions that would quickly win political support”) stands out quite clearly. Between themselves the four documents share much in common, (e.g., a concern about the direct link between growing unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, and social unrest) although points of emphasis naturally differ. The ILO for example stands out with a more focused and meaningful discussion of the problem and tries to offer at least a direction towards a solution. “In short, there is a vicious cycle of a weaker economy affecting jobs and society, in turn depressing real investment and consumption, thus the economy”, it observes, and adds: “This vicious circle can be broken by making markets work for jobs – not the other way around”. It is another matter though that such pieces of good advice are always commended (Prof Amartya Sen has just been awarded the 2011 National Humanities Medal in the US “for his insights into the causes of poverty, famine, and injustice”) but never implemented – until compelled by economic catastrophe and/or powerful popular movements. – Ed....Full text
| |
Political Observer |
|
Draft Political Resolution for the CPI(M)’s 20th Congress : Living in Denial
Political Observer
The CPI(M) Central Committee has released the draft political resolution for the party’s forthcoming 20th Congress scheduled to be held in Kozhikode, Kerala in April 2012. The previous Congress of the party was held in Tamil Nadu four years ago (Coimbatore, March 29-April 3, 2008). The four years from Coimbatore to Kozhikode have been a period of unprecedented electoral reverses for the CPI(M) with the party’s tally in the Lok Sabha dropping to an all time low and the party losing power simultaneously in both West Bengal and Kerala. The electoral reverses however did not come suddenly without any prior warning – in West Bengal, the party’s exit from power merely confirmed the mass isolation and rejection the party had begun to experience in the wake of the Singur-Nandigram events....Full text
| |
Cover Feature |
|
Stop State Repression in Garhwa –
Release Mukhiya Ramdas Minz and Others!
Following a landmine blast by CPI(Maoist) in Garhwa, Jharkhand, CPI(ML) leaders were abducted by Maoists, and the police is implicating the CPI(ML) in the blasts, and torturing its local village activists for ‘conspiring’ with Maoists....Full text
| |
Report |
|
AIPWA 6th National Conference Held at Vijaywada
The 6th National Conference of All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA) took place on 8-9 February at Vijaywada. The entire city was decorated with colourful posters and flags. The women, from around 20 states, marched in a spirited rally from the railway station to Thomalapalli Kalakshetram (renamed Panchadi Nirmala Hall, while Vijaywada was renamed Snehalata Nagar after the martyrs of the Srikakulam movement). Throughout the rally, women raised slogans in Tamil, Hindi, Kannada, Bengali, Assamese, Nepali, Hindi, Telugu and other languages, demanding women’s rights and equality. Lambada women dressed in their traditional costume, and comrades of the Andhra Pradesh Jan Sanskritika Mandali dressed in red with red flags aloft, had led the Rally, while women from many states spontaneously joined them in dancing....Full text
| |
Elections |
|
CPI(ML)’s Assembly Election Campaign : Some Highlights
Dharchula, Uttarakhand
Women’s Political Assertion
(Girija Pathak recounts his memories of some of the highlights of the election campaign.)
A notable feature of the CPI(ML)’s election campaign in Dharchula assembly constituency (in Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand) was the role of women who led the election campaign from the front. The party’s candidate here was Comrade Jagat Singh Martoliya....Full text
| |
Update |
|
CPI(ML)’s 9th West Bengal Conference
he 9th State Conference of West Bengal State Committee was held from 18th to 20th February 2012 at Ashokenagar, 24 North Parganas, in which 349 delegates and 31 observers and guests from all over the State participated. The delegate session was preceded by a lively cultural programme and a discussion on the present situation of West Bengal which was addressed by Nabarun Bhattacharya, eminent poet, and Party’s General Secretary Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya....Full text
The 44th Session of ILC
Rajiv Dimri
The 44th Session of ILC (Indian Labour Conference) was held on 14-15 February 2012 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. The main agenda of the conference was Minimum Wages, Social Security and Employability and Employment....Full text
SC Verdict on 2G Scam:
A Victory for the Struggle Against Corruption and Corporate Plunder
A recent Supreme Court verdict on the 2G scam has ordered cancellation of 122 licenses issued in 2008 and has imposed penalties on the corporations that benefited from corruption. This verdict is notable for the fact that it identifies beneficiaries of corruption – the private corporations, orders the withdrawal of all such benefits achieved through corrupt means, and imposes penalties on those who sought to benefit from such means. Predictably, the corporations hit by the verdict have expressed shock at the verdict, since they obviously expected that they would be treated like sacred cows, exempt from any consequences of corruption....Full text
|
