| |
Editorial |
 |
Cabinet Reshuffle and Cover Up Will Not Do:
Intensify Resistance Against Corruption and Price Rise
Swamped by allegations of corruption of massive proportions on many fronts, the Congress and UPA Government has decided to brazen it out with a campaign of cover up and creating confusion to scuttle any credible and timely probe and punishment.....Full text
| |
Commentary |
|
The lingering inflation tide
Once again with an Onion Odour
Sukanta Mandal
As if rampant corruption were not enough, a shocking price spike has caught the government unawares. Coming at the head of persistent inflation that has already completed more than two years with no respite in sight, it has been termed “a new risk” for the economy by the Reserve Bank of India. It is the onion again which has seen the steepest rise in prices (rising from around Rs 12 per kg in December, 2009 to Rs 15-20 in the middle of 2010 and to Rs 40 or above by the year-end) but basically we are witnessing a food inflation in general, now hovering near 20 per cent.....Full text
Saffron Terror and Witch-hunt of Minorities
Between 2006 and 2009, a series of terrorist blasts occurred (Malegaon, September 2006; Samjhauta Express, February 2007; Mecca Masjid, May 2007; Ajmer Sharif, October 2007; Modasa, September, 2008 Malegaon, September 2008; Goa December 2009), claiming hundreds of innocent lives.....Full text
Srikrishna Committee Report:
‘Expert’ Route to Backtrack
on Telangana?
Far from resolving the vexed Telangana question, the Srikrishna Committee report had further complicated it. The various options seem to have been invoked by it with the singular aim of delegitimizing the Telangana demand and preventing the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh......Full text
Massacre at Netai:
No Lessons Learnt from Nandigram
Kavita Krishnan
The CPI(M) in West Bengal has blood on its hands once again. In a horrific massacre in Netai village, Lalgarh, at least 7 people including 2 women have been shot dead by the CPI(M)’s private armed brigade (harmad vahini) while they were protesting against the harmad vahini’s attempt to force young men from their village to join the armed brigade.....Full text
| |
Cover Feature |
|
Justice and Democracy on Trial
[The Raipur Sessions Court verdict condemning Dr. Binayak Sen to life imprisonment under a range of draconian laws including ‘sedition,’ has been met with an outpouring of protest all over the country. Binayak Sen come to represent all those thousands of people today who are routinely framed in false cases on fabricated evidence, tortured in police custody and convicted in political judgements. While Binayak still awaits justice and freedom, however, it is true that finally, after so many years of struggle, he stands vindicated for his social commitment and courage in the court of public opinion. In that people’s court, it the Chhattisgarh Government, the Central Government and the Indian judiciary that stand in the dock and are being asked to answer for their appeasement of corporates and crimes against democracy.
Free Binayak Sen,
End Operation Green Hunt
In an ongoing Supreme Court hearing on a PIL against the Salwa Judum, the Counsel for the Chhattisgarh Government repeatedly tried to brand the petitioners as ‘Naxal sympathisers,’ even after being ticked off by the Bench for this. In fact, this tactic of branding any and every dissent as ‘naxalism’ is a familiar one, widely used by Governments all over the country and given the status of policy by Operation Green Hunt. In this sense, Binayak Sen’s has been the flashpoint case for Operation Green Hunt....Full text
| |
Special Report |
|
Explosion of Protest
Nuclear Power Project at Jaitapur
[A team of the All India Left Coordination (AILC) comprising LNP(L) leaders Comrades Bhalchandra Kelkar, Medha Thatte, Prakash Jadhav, Bhanudas Zanzale from Pune, LNP(L) Secretary Bhimrao Bansode, and other LNP(L) leaders Balasaheb Surude, Rajendra Bawake, Vasant More and Comrade Kasbe, Kavita Krishnan, CC member of CPI(ML) Liberation and Radhika Krishnan, environmental researcher and Ph.D student at the Centre of Science Policy in JNU from Delhi visited Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, where people are protesting against the proposed Jaitapur Atomic Power Plant. The Konkan Vinashkari Prakalp Virodhi Samiti facilitated the visit, and the team was accompanied by local reporter and movement activist Prashant Hirchekar. A Report of the visit follows.]
Introduction
“The Areva atomic project is an atom bomb for us!” says Hamida, a widow with 6 children who depends on fishing to feed her family. “We’ll die but we won’t allow the project to come up,” says Nooresha, wife of a fisherman. These two are among a milling mass of hundreds of women, at a public meeting in Sakhri Nate, a picturesque fishing village which will be affected by the atomic power project at Jaitapur in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. We, a 12-member team of CPI(ML) Liberation and Lal Nishan Party Leninist activists, are visiting the area to find out why the farmers and fisherfolk here are fiercely resisting the project. The anger of these women is like a physical force; the men are calmer. They are spirited and vocal, and there are only a few burqas in sight in this predominantly Muslim village, where women sort and sell the fish caught by the men in their families.....Full text
| |
Feature |
|
Rapists Protected
While Women are Punished
[In the past couple of months, several recent cases – at Purnea, Banda, Mansa - emerged where powerful and well-connected rapists were protected by the police and authorities, with the women who were struggling for justice being jailed, slandered or pushed to take desperate measures. In all three cases, CPI(ML) and AIPWA have played an active role in the struggle. In each of these cases, the women have proved that they are not ‘victims’ alone – with their courageous struggle for justice in the face of all odds, they have raised unavoidable questions about the character of the governments that are protecting their rapists.]
Rupam Pathak Calls the Bluff of Nitish Govt's 'Empowerment'
What makes an ordinary woman, a 35-year-old schoolteacher of Bihar take a knife and stab a ruling party MLA in broad daylight? Even as member of his party, the BJP, beat her up brutally, the Deputy CM of Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi, was quick to declare that Rupam Pathak was a blackmailer, while the departed BJP MLA from Purnea, Raj Kishor Kesri, was a man of pure character and a hero of the 1974 movement. Why was the Deputy CM of a state in such a hurry to attack the character of a woman, instead of waiting for enquiries to take place? ...Full text
| |
Updates |
|
Jharkhand Panchayat Elections
Our Initial Achievements and Fresh Challenges
D P Bakshi
After a gap of 32 years, the three-tier Panchayat elections were finally concluded Jharkhand, generating tremendous enthusiasm and participation at the grassroots with more than 70% polling and significant participation of women and youth. It also saw the enthusiastic participation of the backward classes and especially the tribal people in the scheduled regions. The election took place in November-December last year in 5 segments, the last segment of which concluded on 24 December 2011 and all the results were declared by 30 December 2011....Full text
| |
International |
|
The Modern Occupation
[Two years have passed since Israel’s aggression on Gaza, and siege and blockade continues there. Shashwat Sinha recounts the history of Palestine’s occupation and dispossession and reflects on Israel’s strategic place in US interests. The article will be continued and concluded in the forthcoming issue.]
The Middle-East is burning; indeed, peace has been a chimera for the region for decades. War, violence, impoverishment, lack of any semblance of justice has become routinised in the daily lives of the people in the Middle-East.....Full text
Salman Taseer Remembered
Tariq Ali
(Excerpted from the London Review of Books, Vol. 33 No. 2, 20 January 2011)
Mumtaz Hussain Qadri smiled as he surrendered to his colleagues after shooting Salman Taseer, the governor of the Punjab, dead. Many in Pakistan seemed to support his actions; others wondered how he’d managed to get a job as a state bodyguard in the carefully screened Elite Force. Geo TV, the country’s most popular channel, reported, and the report has since been confirmed, that ‘Qadri had been kicked out of Special Branch after being declared a security risk,’ that he ‘had requested that he not be fired on but arrested alive if he managed to kill Taseer’ and that ‘many in Elite Force knew of his plans to kill Salman Taseer.’.....Full text
| |
Cover |
|
CPI(ML) Condoles the Passing of Veteran Civil Liberties Fighter K G Kannabiran
At a time when civil liberties and people’s movements are under unprecedented attack, the loss of K G Kannabiran will be deeply felt. For the past more than 40 years, K G Kannabiran was a fearless and tireless voice challenging state repression and struggling to defend and expand democratic rights.....Full text
|
