The International Labour Organization (ILO) has for some months been bringing out a report that monitors the impact of the pandemic on the world economy, especially the labour-hours lost because of the lockdown and their ramifications. The statistics it provides…
Wealth distribution data are notoriously difficult to interpret. This is because variations in stock prices affect wealth distribution, so that a stock market boom suddenly makes the rich appear much richer, while a stock market collapse makes wealth distribution less…
A chapter in the October 2020 edition of the IMF’s biannual publication, Fiscal Monitor, argues that as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and to support the recovery as Covid-19 induced lockdowns are relaxed and the world moves to a…
A theoretical analysis of the prevailing situation, from which the proletariat’s relationship with different segments of the bourgeoisie and the peasantry is derived, and with it the Communist Party’s tactics towards other political forces, is central to the Party’s praxis.…
The three Agriculture bills rushed through parliament by the Modi government seek to bring peasant producers into direct contact with corporate buyers without any intervention by the state. The government suggests that intervention in the form of the Minimum Support…
Growth under capitalism is associated with an increase in absolute poverty. Marx had recognised this and expressed it as follows: “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, the torment of labour, slavery,…
Federalism is one of the basic features of the Indian Constitution. In the Constituent Assembly Professor K.T.Shah wanted the term “federal”, together with the term “secular”, included in the Preamble itself, but Dr.Ambedkar rejected it on the grounds that the…
The office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, in its Report 4 of 2020 relating to Union finances, has criticized the Centre’s handling of funds collected from various cesses levied for specified purposes. Cesses collected for designated…
The two bills rammed through parliament last week were objectionable in every conceivable sense. The very fact of their being rammed through the Rajya Sabha, without being put to vote despite demands for a division, was grossly anti-democratic. The fact…
A striking aspect of the 24 per cent decline in GDP in the first quarter of 2020-21 compared to the previous year’s first quarter is the decline by 10.3 per cent in public administration, defence and other public services. This…
