As 2015 drew to a close the Finance Ministry released its Mid-Year Review (MYR), which summarised the official view of the state of play in the economy after a year-and-a-half of Modi-rule. As expected the MYR begins with the positives,…
Officers and other employees of the public sector IDBI Bank, organised under the banner of the United Forum of IDBI Officers and Employees, struck work for a day on November 27 protesting against the government’s decision to privatise the bank.…
The WTO has been a major weapon used by the advanced countries to roll back the structures that the third world dirigiste regimes which came into existence after decolonization had erected for achieving a degree of self-reliance. The TRIPS agreement…
The central government sets up a Pay Commission about once every ten years to recommend what the structure of salaries, allowances and pensions for its current and retired employees should be. The seventh Pay Commission had been set up accordingly…
The closest friend I had in my childhood was a boy who came from a dalit family. He lived in a little bustee near our house in the small mofussil town in Odisha where I spent my early years. He…
At first sight the “Make in India” campaign appears innocuous, a pipe-dream perhaps but a rather harmless one. If the world’s big companies come to “make” things in India for selling all over the world, which is the thrust of…
The Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) is named after a young Left-wing theatre activist who was beaten to death by goons while performing a street play in support of striking workers in Sahibabad on the outskirts of Delhi. It is…
If you read or watched or listened only to the mainstream media in the North, you could be forgiven for believing that the current influx of refugees into countries of Europe is not just an important concern, but actually even…
What a difference a year makes. Even until just a year ago, the “emerging market economies” were being lauded as the hope of global capitalism. They were supposedly able to “decouple” themselves from the financial crises and stagnation of advanced…
There is a strong view in certain Left circles, especially in certain European Left circles, that any de-linking from global capitalism conduces to a promotion of domestic reaction. Of course, even in Europe this is not necessarily the dominant view…
