Gurgaon Workers News January 2010 Issue
This page is a mirror of the January 2010 update of the Gurgaon Workers News blog.
Contents:
1) Proletarian Experiences -
Daily life stories and reports from a workers’ perspective
*** Garment Export Workers’ Reports and Escapist Hopes of the Export Regime -
These reports were told by workers during the distribution of Faridabad Mazdoor Samachar in autumn 2009. Most […]
Delhi Convention on Communities, Commons and Corporations
Reporting from Turkey: TEKEL Workers’ Resistance and the Re-Awakening of the Proletariat
By Erinc Yeldan, Bilkent University. February 7 2010.
“A specter is haunting Turkey, the specter of the proletariat…” these are the words singing from ear to ear in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, since December 15 2009.
Since that day, despite the severe cold, poor conditions of the street-life, and brutal assaults of the ruling AKP government and its leader Tayyip Erdogan, the workers’ of TEKEL (the recently privatized public enterprise producing cigarettes, tobacco, alcohol and spirits) had taken the streets of the main district of Ankara as the center of resistance. The workers have been taking turns in shifts in their tents of resistance day and night, and receive tremendous support from all over Turkey –ordinary citizens, University students, workers from all other unions. National support for their cause has now spread out over international borders and is assuming non-traditional displays of solidarity such as exhibit of supporting banners in the European football stadiums during the games over the weekend of January 30-31.
GM crops: A Few Questions to the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee and the Hon’ble Supreme Court
By Sailendra Nath Ghosh. February 7 2010.
In April last year, the Supreme Court, in response to a public interest litigation filed by Gene Campaign (whose convenor is the internationally known geneticist Dr Suman Sahai), directed the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) to consider the toxicity and allergenicity of GM crops and to post the relevant material on the web so that independent experts could examine these. The Supreme Court asked the GEAC to study also the isolation distance of experimental fields to prevent contamination.
Hunting Adivasis In Mineral Corridor
“Naxalites are our stray brothers and sisters therefore we will address the issues of Naxalism through dialogues”. These are the holy words of Jharkhand Chief Minister Sibu Soren, who repeatedly told us even after swearing in as the guard of the state for 3rd time. However, the unbearable pressure from the central government and the corporate houses made him completely helpless. Consequently, he took u turn and attended a special meeting with our ‘Corporate Home Minister’ P. Chidambaram in Delhi on January 27th on the issue of so-called ‘Operation Green Hunt’. After his return from Delhi, he started dancing in different tune, saying, operation green hunt will be started if the Maoists do not abjure violence.
Kolkata February 9th - Black Day - Mass protest against the Operation Green Hunt and related issues
PPSS Press Release - Fear of attack on Anti-POSCO movement
Chandigarh - Public Meeting Against Operation Green Hunt
Kalyug: Descent into darkness
Howard Zinn (1922-2010)
Downright Assault on Human Rights, Extra Constitutional Exercise of Constitutional Powers — a Shame on the Anarchic Governmental Leftism
National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), West Bengal strongly condemns the blatant attack on the Fundamental Rights of the people of the
country guaranteed by the Constitution made by the police and administration of the state of West Bengal by illegally detaining and finally arresting
with some false and frivolous allegations the human rights activists and the renowned members of civil society on their way to visit Lalgarh for access of the situation over there and in their peaceful and lawful demands of withdrawing Joint Force from Lalgarh, release of political prisoners of Lalgarh and withdrawing the preventive orders U/S. 144 of Cr.P.C. from the area.
Chhatradhar Mahato responds to Mamata Banerjee
[Recently, Mamata Banerji had offered to mediate negotiations between the agitating adivasis of Lalgarh and the government. In response, Chhatradhar Mahato, the imprisoned leader of People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), responded from the jail via an open letter which was published in the Bengali daily newspaper Pratidin. A translated version of the letter is published below.]
Press Statement of the Citizens’ Expert Committee on BT Brinjal
In the State of Telangana
At the time when the movement for the State of Telangana reaches its peak, and even as the leaders of this movement craft the contours of this state that is one step towards liberating the people of this region from a history of economic, political and cultural oppression, it is important to think about which way we would like to go. As somebody who believes in Telangana statehood, not as part of a general argument about the efficacy of smaller states alone, but as indispensable to the dignity of the region, I raise these questions with the aim of pushing for a greater democratization of the movement. There are unresolved issues that need to be addressed and there are leaders of integrity, with a radical vision and political astuteness like Kondandram and Ratnamala, who have the capacity to take difficult questions on board and turn them into strengths.
Faridabad and Gurgaon: Workers’ Action, Leftwing Media
An Analytical Monthly Review editorial. Dec 2009.
The establishment media is for most the source of our daily information. Even if we manage to be continually conscious of the embedded commercial and class bias, the picture received is chaotic and fragmented. To make a credible narrative of events we need the left — or left-influenced — journals, both in print and on the web (though internet access remains quite limited). Left sources are especially needed for events intentionally underreported by the establishment media, above all the daily acts of resistance to the oppression of capitalist social relations. We are therefore pleased to recommend the excellent weblogs of the GurgaonWorkersNews (”Workers News from the Special Exploitation Zone”) and Faridabad Majdoor Samaachaar (Faridabad Workers News) to our readers. The perspective from Gurgaon is of importance; the processes visible there are both more intense and innovative than elsewhere. In more than one sense one might say that the Gurgaon proletariat is a leading element.
Gandhian dissent in the land of Gandhi: Barbed perimeters in the current conjuncture
This set of articles charts out recent Gandhian modes of dissent centered mainly around the activities of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, in the backdrop of Operation Green Hunt, in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh. A planned padyatra was scuttled by the administration, a Jan Sunwai, already operating under conditions of intense repression, has failed to materialise. At the current juncture, January 11 2010, Himanshu Kumar has exited Dantewada under imminent threat of arrest under false charges; activists and journalists who had been present at the VCA premises have been hit with a dacoity case; a senior VCA activist has been imprisoned on charges of murder. These developments bring into sharp focus the barbed perimeters of activism, in a region of India where the contradiction between the State and the masses is so acute. - Ed.
In the Land of Gandhi - Preeti Chauhan. Jan 3 2010
Chhattisgarh cops slap dacoity case against visiting activists - Jan 6 2010
Life Behind The Iron Curtain - Tusha Mittal, Tehelka. Jan 11 2010
Hidden Apartheid: Caste and Caste Discrimination in the UK
Over the last 60 years, there has been a gradual increase in the numbers of people in the UK from the Indian subcontinent. These communities have settled here and brought with them their own social habits, norms and religious customs including the Caste system.
The Hindu Council UK and the Hindu Forum of Britain have both acknowledged in their reports that the Caste system exists in the UK. However, both bodies argue that Caste discrimination is not endemic in the UK, and only plays a role in social interactions and personal choices like marriages, conversations and friendships. A number of academics and UK organisations, including the Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance (ACDA), Dalit Solidarity Network UK (DSN), Federation of Ambedkarites and Buddhists Organisations (FABO) and CasteWatchUK (CWUK), argue otherwise. They say that the Caste system and the discrimination associated with it impacts in some form or other on the two million or so people in the UK from the Asian Diaspora and extends beyond social interaction.
Hegemonic Secularism, Dominant Communalism: Imagining Social Transformation in India
By Saroj Giri. This article appeared in Rethinking Marxism, Dec 2009.
Abstract
Most antimodern and subaltern critiques of ‘‘secularism’’ in India work by exposing a hidden, particularist majoritarianism (communalism) underneath abstract secularist universalism; this, however, externalizes communalism to the effects of ‘‘Western modernity’’ or secularization. On the other hand, the secularist left also externalizes communalism to feudal, premodern power relations or right-wing forces, or to the lack of left nationalist hegemony, or ‘‘an ethically neutral state.’’
Sunil Pal, IFTU labour leader, murdered in Asansol
The Jan Sunwai That Never Was : Listen to the Voices from Chhattisgarh!
In Dantewada yesterday a team of around 30 activists from NAPM and other organizations, Medha Patkar and Sandeep Pandey among them, were heckled, pelted with eggs and sewage and attacked by a large gang of tribal youth, accusing them of being Maoist sympathizers. The activists were simply walking peacefully to the SP’s office to ask him about the on-going repression in the area. Instead of curbing those who perpetrated the violent and unlawful assault, the police focused on sternly reprimanding and pushing back the social activists who were carrying out legitimate activity and demanding the restoration of basic constitutional rights. This impunity enjoyed by these attackers from the so called custodians of law has to be strongly condemned. This impunity is symptomatic of the bizarre situation that has been developing in Chhattisgarh, which seems out of bounds for all fundamental rights and principles of natural justice. Ironically it is the state, the supposed protector of these rights that has been the biggest offender in this regard. This state of undeclared emergency in Chhattisgarh is destroying the basic fabric of democracy in the country. It has to be exposed immediately and stopped firmly.
War Against the People and the Historic Lalgarh Movement
The Indian ruling classes and the central government they have set up to serve them have very recently declared one of the most unjust and brutal wars against the people which is quite unprecedented in the history of our country. Such a massive mobilization of armed forces, paramilitary forces, police forces and air forces totalling around 1 lakh personnel, along with US-Israel military assistance of various types only highlights the magnitude of the war.
Almond Workers’ Strike: one of the largest unorganized workers’ strikes in Delhi
“We can’t shop our way out of the ecological crisis”
`We can’t shop our way out of the ecological crisis’ - John Bellamy Foster
The Story of Cap & Trade - Annie Leonard
Fate of Planet Rests on Mass Movement for Climate Justice - Naomi Klein
War against the Maoists: But who are they and what do they want?
By Rita Khanna, Radicalnotes. Nov 19 2009.
This piece is a rapid and supportive primer on the the Maoist movement in India, which has come into much focus in the mainstream media recently. It is a counterpoint to mainstream representation, and does not delve into more technical arenas of economics or political theory. -Ed.
The Indian government is launching a full-scale war against the Maoist rebels and the people led by them in different parts of the country. The initial battles, without any formal announcement, have already started. For this purpose, they intend to deploy about 75,000 security personnel in parts of Central and Eastern India, including Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand. The government will organize its regular air-force in addition to paramilitary and specially trained COBRA forces. The air-force has begun to extend its logistic support. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P. Chidambaram have declared the Maoist rebels to be ‘the biggest internal security threat’ to India and a hindrance to ‘development’. The mainstream media seem to have taken them at their face value. Their publications and television programmes seem to be building a war-hysteria against the Maoist rebels regardless of the fact that this attack by the government will be directed against some of the most deprived of the Indian people. Indeed this is turning into a war of the state against its own people!
Chattisgarh: Lawyer and activist illegally detained
Rally Against War on People
For a vast majority of the people of our country, these are indeed difficult times. It is not just because the prices of every commodity in the market is rising sky high, not even because jobs are being cut and workers are facing retrenchment, also not because health care and education are increasingly going out of reach of the man on the street. In this period of an all-encompassing crisis, when a vast majority of the people in the cities and villages of this country are struggling to procure even the basic necessities of life and to make the ends meet, a greater and more immediate crisis is looming large on a section of the most oppressed people of this country: the entire population of central and eastern India.
Dialogue in Democracy: Challenges for Government-Maoist Talks
Public opinion in India seems to be building up strongly in favour of a dialogue among the government and the Maoists. This is despite the clear indications that the Central Government is going ahead with its preparations for launching the armed offensive in the Naxalite movement areas. Yet there are signs from both the government and the Maoists that they were amenable to the idea of talks.
Dantewada Padyatra, Satyagraha and Jan Sunwai
You are aware that the Tribals of Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh State are continuously facing large-scale displacement from their homes, fields and forests a well as a genocide in the last five years. The first aggressive onslaught was by the State sponsored vigilante group called the Salwa Judum. Simultaneously, an anti-democratic draconian law called the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act 2005 was brought in to silence all dissent. In the last four years it has been systematically used against human rights defenders, journalists, film-makers, lawyers, intellectuals and ordinary citizens whenever they have the State has felt the need to silence people.
Convention of Women against Sexual violence and State Repression
All India National Convention against SEZ, land-grabbing, displacements - December 13, New Delhi
Date: 13 December 2009
Time: 10am - 8pm
Venue: Garhwal Bhavan, Panchkuyan Road (next to Jhandewalan Metro Station, near Paharganj), New Delhi
Organised by: “ALL INDIA CO-ORDINATION OF MOVEMENTS AGAINST SEZ, LAND-GRABBING AND DISPLACEMENT”,
an initiative which […]
Statement denouncing the derailment of Tata-Bilaspur train on 20th November
Peoples Union for Democratic Rights unequivocally denounces the November 20th incident in which eight bogies of the Tata-Bilaspur passenger train were derailed, near Manoharpur railway station in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand, by the armed cadres of CPI (Maoist), and two persons, including a two year old, died and 51 were injured. The derailment, allegedly using detonators, was caused in the course of a two day bandh on November 19-20th when, according to local Maoist leaders, they were demanding that one of their arrested leaders be produced in the Court. According to Samarji, secretary Bihar-Jharkahnd –Orissa regional committee of the CPI(Maoist), said that the “mistake” occurred because of “overzealous new recruits”. PUDR has time and again pointed out that political formations which offer armed resistance can not evade their responsibility for causing civilian casualties. These are not collateral damage, intended or unintended, in contexts such as above where a passenger train was targeted. It instead suggests reckless act by a poorly disciplined force.
All India Convention Against War on People, 4th December, Delhi
INVITATION
10am - 7pm, 4 December 2009 (Friday)
Speaker’s Hall, Constitution Club, Rafi Marg, New Delhi
Friends,
As you read this invite, Indian state’s ongoing war on people that began on the 1st of November, will already complete several weeks. The body-count of the adivasis –the prime victims of the Indian government’s ‘hunt’– also started to mount. As per the sporadic news from the Ground Zero trickles in through the media, the casualty is escalating by each passing day, as grow the number of burnt villages, persons displaced, injured or arrested. We hear of battalions of CRPF, COBRA, C-60, Grey Hounds, ITBP, Anti-Naxal Task Force and a whole assortment of armed paramilitary and police forces stepping up their operation in Dandakaranya and adjoining regions, backed by air force helicopters and US intelligence satellites, commanded by army top brass. As reports are pouring in already thousands of adivasis have been displaced from their homes as the ruthless state repressive machine has let loose a reign of terror in these areas. The renewed offensive by the joint forces in Lalgarh too has left hundreds of protesting adivasis homeless. There is every possibility that the number of dead and injured people, along with the displaced and destroyed villages will only mount in the coming weeks, if the Indian government does not call for an immediate halt to this all-encompassing military offensive. As has been the case with nationality movements in Kashmir and the North East, the Indian state’s endeavour to find a ‘military solution’ through war will only endanger the lives and livelihood of lakhs of citizens.
Indian government has been preparing for this massive military operation for months, lining up nearly one lakh troops and arming them with sophisticated weapons, mobilising the air force for aerial strikes and involving the Indian army not only for training and logistical purposes, but for operational command and even active combat if required. There are also reports of US intelligence and security officials ‘advising’ the Indian government in conducting this war. As reported by the media, the entire forested regions of central and eastern India have been divided into seven Operating Areas, which the government wants to ‘clear’ within the next five years of all resistance, including that of the Maoists and other Naxalite organisations. An outlay of Rs.7300 crores has already been earmarked for this war.
None is in illusion as to the objectives of this war against the people. This war is being fought by the Indian government at the behest of the corporates and for their benefit, targeting the life and livelihood of the adivasis. The worldwide imperialist economy presently faces its most severe crisis after 1929. The military-industrial complex, which includes multinational and Indian big business interests, is looking for wars that have the potential to artificially generate the much-needed demand for their products in a crisis-ridden market. Moreover, both domestic and foreign corporations desperately want to lay their hands on the minerals worth billions of dollars deposited in the vast forest regions of central and eastern India. Once accessed, this can guarantee the corporations super-profits for several decades. Hundreds of agreements and MoUs that allow free plunder of people’s resources have already been concluded by mining corporations with the central and state governments. The corporations easily cleared all the legal hurdles between themselves and the natural resources. The only barrier that now stands between them and their prize is people’s resistance, whether unarmed or armed. From Nandigram to Niyamgiri, Lalgarh to Dandakaranya, Koraput to Kalinganagar, Dadri to Narayanpatna, people have refused to be mere victims of state-sponsored policies of Liberalisation-Privatisation-Globalisation (LPG) in the name of ‘development’. After trying all forceful measures from police repression to Salwa Judum which have failed to deter the people’s movements, the Indian government is now waging war not only against the Naxalite and Maoist movements which have been termed as the ‘biggest internal security threat’, but against all people’s movements that challenge its policies. By doing so, it not only is trying to bulldoze all kinds of dissenting voices and democratic rights, but is also aiming to exterminate the aspirations of the exploited and oppressed people for a better society, a life with dignity.
Forum Against war on People invites you to this All-India Convention which is an effort to examine the ongoing war on people in all its dimensions. More importantly, it seeks to become a strong voice of resistance against this war. We urge you to participate in the Convention and make it an occasion to collectively demand that the Indian government must immediately and unconditionally stop this war, waged in our name against our own people.
Convention Against War On People
Venue: Speaker’s Hall, Constitution Club, Rafi Marg, New Delhi
Date: 4 December 2009 (Friday) Time: 10 am—7 pm
Speakers -
Justice AS Bains
BD Sharma
Vara Vara Rao (Revolutionary Poet)
PA Sebastian (CPDR, Maharashtra)
Prof. Jagmohan (AFDR, Punjab)
Arundhati Roy (Writer)
Bullu Bahan, (Chhattisgarh)
Madhuri (MP)
Prof. Amit Bhattacharyya
Ajit Bhuyan (Editor, Asomiya Pratidin)
Prashant Bhushan
Shashi Bhushan Pathak (PUCL Jharkhand)
Bernard D’Mello (Deputy Editor, EPW)
Lachit Bordoloi (MASS, Assam)
Dr. N Venuh (NPMHR)
Sudhir Patnaik (Lok Pakhya, Orissa)
Prof N K Bhattacharya (Jan Hastakshep)
Malem Ningthouja (CPDM, Manipur)
Harish Dhawan (PUDR)
Shamsher Singh Bisht (Uttarakhand Lok Vahini)
Lateef Mohd. Khan (Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee)
Gautam Navlakha
Kavita Krishnan (CPI-ML [Liberation])
Sheomangal Siddhantkar (CPI-ML [New Proletarian])
SS Mahal (CPI-ML [New Democracy])
SAR Geelani (CRPP)
GN Saibaba
Prof. Jagmohan Singh (Voices for Freedom)
Santosh Mahapatra (Orissa)
Arjun Prasad Singh (PDFI)
Dr. Animesh Das (IFTU)
Raminder Singh (NBS)
Alok (KYS)
PUCL
JNU Forum Against War on People
DU Campaign Against War on People
BD Sharma, Arundhati Roy, Tripta Wahi, Vijay Singh, Correspondence, Campaign Against War on People, Committee Against Violence On Women (CAVOW), Naga Students Union Delhi (NSUD), Navjawan Bharat Sabha (NBS), KRALOS, KLAS, Krantikari Yuva Sanghathan (KYS), PFD, PUCL, MKP, Campaign for Peace & Democracy Manipur (CPDM), DSU, CRPP, DGMF, People’s Front (PF), Mazdoor Ekta Manch (MEM), Left Democratic Teacher’s Front (LDTF), RDF, PDFI, CPI (ML) (New Democracy), CPI (ML) (Liberation), CPI (ML) (New Proletarian) and others
Forum Against War on People
Contact: stopwaroncitizens@gmail.com
INVITATION
10am - 7pm, 4 December 2009 (Friday)
Speaker’s Hall, Constitution Club, Rafi Marg, New Delhi
Friends,
As you read this invite, Indian state’s ongoing war on people that began on the 1st of November, will already complete several weeks. The body-count of the adivasis –the prime victims of the Indian government’s ‘hunt’– also started to mount. As per […]
NO More Bhopals!
25 years ago, on the night of 2-3 December 1984, the terrible gas leak from the American multinational Union Carbide’s pesticide factory resulted, over the years, in the death of over 35,000 people and the chronic illness of over 3 lakh people, of whom over 1 lakh were permanently maimed. The victims continue to fight for proper compensation, rehabilitation, livelihoods, decontamination of soil and water and criminal action against those responsible. Their 25 year old struggle is a saga of pain and courage.
Democracy and ban cannot go together
In the recent days, two important developments took place in the national scene — both of which have far-reaching implications. One, of course, is the battle for Lalgarh. The second — that has some bearing on the Lalgarh movement also — is the banning of the CPI(Maoist) after it was tagged to the long list of what the central government described as ‘terrorist organizations’. It implies that the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2008(UAPA) would henceforth be applied to the members of the Maoist party or people sympathetic to their cause.
‘Democracy’ at its worst !
As this report gets written Singanna and Andru’s bodies are being cremated at Podapadar village amidst a throng of police platoons waiting to arrest any member of Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha (CMAS) who exposes herself or himself to the police. Already 20 have been arrested and there is evident fear of many more hundreds being detained or arrested. The total clamp down on participation of the media, activists, leaders and any sympathizer of CMAS is not only condemnable but totally unjustified. The district has been turned into a hunting ground of tribals and there is fear written all over the faces of tribals in this remote block of Koraput district. A small team of three members made a two-day visit to Narayanpatna to ascertain the situation and understand the truth behind the firing incident which killed two tribals.
Who Is the Problem, the CPI(Maoist) or the Indian State?
By Himanshu Kumar, Vanvasi Chetna Ashram.
This report, published in EPW, was translated by Jyoti Punwani and is a summary of a talk given by Himanshu Kumar at the Press Club, Mumbai, on October 31 2009.
Seventeen years ago I went to Dantewada following Gandhiji’s belief that the real India lies in the villages, and young people must go there to rejuvenate them. The villagers gave me land to build my ashram. Under the Fifth Schedule, the gram sabha was empowered to do so. But the government demolished the ashram this year, sending a force of 1,000 policemen, anti-landmine vehicles…That is when the adivasis finally acknowledged that I was like them! My home could also be demolished.
The Ready-made Garment Industry: Global Chain Of Imperialist Exploitation
By Debabrata Mondal. First published in the Marxist theoretical journal “For A Proletarian Party” published from Kolkata.
In two countries, at two opposite ends of the world, two remarkable incidents of workers’ revolt occurred almost simultaneously in 2006.
The workers associated with both these incidents were of the same industry, namely the ready-made garment industry. The comparably larger incident took place in Bangladesh. Spanning the period from March to October,2006, 1.8 million workers of the ready-made garment industry frequently came out on the road after striking work in a number of factories together and effectively laid siege on the capital Dhaka. Powered by the spontaneously crystallizing unity among themselves, the lower-rung workers revolted against the coercion of the factory-owners, braving the repressive terror unleashed by the goons/security guards hired by the factory-owners, the police and the military. Moreover, these revolts gathered momentum in spite of the concerted effort to pull in their reins by the trade-union organizations abiding by the dictates of the established parliamentary parties. All these had been achieved by the workers who had been denied even the right to organize in a trade-union till then !
Narayanpatna: An Interview with Gananath Patra
On the 20th of November three adivasis, including a leader of Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha (CMAS), were gunned down near the police station of Narayanpatna. The CMAS has been struggling for the redistribution of land among tribals in the region. Nachika Linga and Gananath Patra have been spearheading the movement since its inception. The police […]
A Joint Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission and the Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha : Government of West Bengal must act to prevent further starvation deaths
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM) have issued several urgent appeals seeking assistance for the families evicted from Bellilious Park. Most of the evicted families are engaged in manual scavenging in Kolkata and Howrah. The Dalit identity of the evictees prevented them from leading a decent life. It also makes it difficult for them to find any other job other than what is often ‘marked up’ for Dalits in India — cleaning filth.
Dharna by ECL contract workers on 23rd November at Sanctoria
A dharna of the contract workers of Eastern Coalfields Limited is being organized by Adhikaar, demanding the payment of minimum wages. Adhikar is a local mass organization which is also involved in the movement against the proposed aerotropolis at Andal.
Paradeep to Puri : The Padayatra Against Predatory Corporations
The Mass Rally, of over 2000 people will walk through 120 villages of seven blocks namely Erasama, Balikuda in Jagatsinghpur District and Astaranga, Kaktpur, Gop, Puri Sadar, Puri covering 150 kilometres. The Rally will start from Dhinkia village on 29th November 2009 and culminate at Puri on 5th December 2009 with a massive protest meeting.
Lokayat - Protest Meeting and All-India Seminar against Nuclear Plant and thermal power projects coming up in Ratnagiri and Sindhdurg Districts
Protest Meeting and All-India Seminar against Nuclear Plant and Thermal power projects coming up in Ratnagiri and Sindhdurg Districts
Venue: Ratnagiri
Dates: 23-24 November 2009 (Monday, Tuesday)
The government of India is embracing nuclear power in a big way. It is planning a quantum jump in nuclear power generation, from 4120 MW at present to 63,000 MW by 2032. As a part of this expansion program, it is setting up a NPP at Madban (near Jaitapur, Ratnagiri district, Maharashtra) of 10,000 MW. The process has reached an advanced stage. Land acquisition notices have been served on the local people. The people have launched an agitation to oppose the project. The project will destoy their health and livelihoods, not just for this generation, but till eternity. A Nuclear power plant emits deathly radiation which causes cancer, birth defects, sterility and other terrible diseases, not just in this generation, but for thousands of years, as the radioactive particles released into the atmosphere have very long lives. This is the reason why governments in many countries are phasing out nuclear power plants, and the US and many European countries have not built a nuclear plant for the last 30 years.
Anatomy of Chidambaram’s Tehelka Interview: “Give me 72 hours!“
By Sadanand Patwardhan. Nov 17, 2009.
Shoma Chaudhary of Tehelka interviewed P Chidambaram recently (“ Halt the violence! Give me 72 hours”). He is arguably among the most articulate ministers of UPA government. His exhortation to Maoists to suspend violence sounds most reasonable. Dialogue is impossible in the climate of war, he chimes. He has given very lawyerly answers harping on semantics.
What Is Maoism?
By Bernard D’Mello, Monthly Review. Nov 8 2009.
The Maoist movement in India is a direct consequence of the tragedy of India ruled by her big bourgeoisie and governed by parties co-opted by that class-fraction. The movement now threatens the accumulation of capital in its areas of influence, prompting the Indian state to intensify its barbaric counter-insurgency strategy to throttle it. In trying to understand what is going on, and, in turn, to re-imagine what the practice of radical democratic politics could be, it might help if, for a moment, we step aside and reflect over the questions: What is Maoism? What of its origins and development? What went before its advent? What are its flaws? Where is it going? Where should it be going, given its legacy?
Gurgaon workers unrest: Background, features, chronology, and economic notes on India’s automobile industry
From Gurgaon Workers News, November 2009 Issue.
Disputes about recognition of unions at two companies (Auto Rico and Sunbeam) and a three-year wage agreement at another (Honda HMSI) has recently led to workers unrest in Gurgaon, India’s main automobile cluster. The disputes have lasted for more than a month between mid-September and end of October 2009. After a Rico worker was killed, the CPI affiliated AITUC union called for one-day-strike, and 80,000 to 100,000 car workers did not work on 20th of October 2009. The dispute at Rico caused factory closures at GM and Ford in the US due to lack of parts.
Citizens Initiative for Peace and the Maoist Challenge
I have read the Resolution (entitled “Stop offensive Hold Unconditional Dialogue” in Mainstream) made by the Citizens Initiative for Peace very carefully and I would like to raise some questions about the list of six demands that have been formulated in the light of the discussion and debates around the question of the Indian State’s decision to deal with the “Naxalite problem” with brute military force.
Your Mama! Or The Blitzerization Of Indian TV
By Trevor Selvam. October 29, 2009
In the past two weeks, I have viewed three shows on NDTV 24/7 and one on CNN-IBN live. On one NDTV show, the moderator was Mr. Vikram Chandra and the other one had the ubiquitous Ms. Barkha Dutt. The CNN-IBN show was moderated by Ms Sagarika Ghose.
All three of the shows had to do with Naxalites or Maoists. The NDTV shows had the emblematic war-drum like sound effects and graphic interplay that aped the “War on Terror” style of the Fox/CNN networks. The lead caption of the “Maoist Muddle”, the talk show hosted by Ms. Dutt, had an old Western badlands style letter font in use, which would swish back and forth, when Ms. Dutt took a break. (No! they did not play the theme tune from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or Appaloosa).
A Sensible Democratic Alternative to the Proposed Military Offensive
The government’s proposal for large-scale military offensive in Central and parts of Eastern India has been opposed by democratic minded people from across the world. Democratic sections of civil society in India have called for an immediate halt to the government’s military offensive. They have argued that the conflict be resolved through negotiations between the government and the CPI(Maoist). In response, the Home Minister has stated that in a “democracy”, such negotiations can only be held if CPI(Maoist) “abjures violence”. This is, to say the least, disingenuous. As these sorts of conflicts are by definition “asymmetrical”, and since the military might of the Indian state is incomparably superior, it is the responsibility of the government to take the first steps to win over the confidence of the adivasis and the rebels by calling off the military offensive. When the government is sending in thousands of paramilitary troops, encircling key areas and continuing military action on the rebels, asking the rebels and the people to give up arms as a precondition for negotiations, is certain to ensure that no negotiations take place.
Lohandiguda, Bastar: The threat of a desi East India Company?
By Krishnamurthy Ramasubbu. Oct 25, 2009
Jagdalpur, Bastar district headquarters town in Chhattisgarh, looks like a ghost town. Large areas around the collector’s office have been cordoned off. Around 50 tribals sit in a hall waiting for a public hearing of the environmental impact assessment report of Tata Steel’s proposed Rs 10,000-crore greenfield steel project in the district’s Lohandiguda block.
The Media Question
A leaflet issued by Correspondence and Radical Notes
Admittedly it has been an old problem with most movements, that they have treated the media only as a means to an end, ‘a way of making themselves heard,’ and so long as they got some coverage with the help of conscientious friends within the media, they were satisfied. The larger dynamics of the media, as a certain sort of work, in a certain sort of work place, with human agents who are workers here, has not been addressed. Newspapers and news channels should be and can be the strongest arms of a democratic society; they can make sure that the voice of the people finds representation. Though cliché, one has to point out how the media can raise difficult questions, but the onus is upon journalists as responsible citizens and in their capacity as workers to raise them.
Myth of the Global Safety Net
By Jan Breman. New Left Review, October 2009.
This article discusses two “safety-nets” in mainstream economic thinking - (1) The informal sector provides a cushion against fluctuations and recession in the formal economy, providing vast populations in developing countries with a safety net (the article discusses the borderline starvation and suicide-waves that are a feature of this so-called safety net) and (2) Returning to the village in case of job-loss is a fall-back strategy (the article argues that there is no employment “back home”). - Ed.
The cold white light of truth has just gone out
By Biju Mathew. October 22, 2009
K. Balagopal – the celebrated civil liberties activist is no more.
When you grow up in Hyderabad, there are shadows that you grow up under. These are shadows that nurture you – give you the courage. First, Balagopal was a phenomenon. We heard about him. Never saw him. In some part because he was in Warangal, not Hyderabad. That’s where he began to be known, politically. A mathematics lecturer, who was deeply committed to revolution. His writings began appearing in the press and the incisiveness of each word he wrote was striking. He never minced words. There was a clarity in his writing – especially his early writings — that was absolutely rare – a kind of illuminative capacity so well described by the Brechtian idea of “the cold white light” of truth. That was Balagopal. Fiercely honest. Armed with the toolbox of Marxist theory that he had mastered even as he mastered Stochastic Environments, he taught many of us to think.
Pricol Industries - Background notes on workers struggle and State repression
October 22, 2009
Recently, in Pricol Industries in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, a manager was killed in an outburst of workers’ anger. The Tamil Nadu government immediately lodged a conspiracy to murder case against Kumaraswami, the national president of AICCTU, the trade union wing of CPI(ML)-Liberation, to which the Pricol workers belonged, although there is no evidence against Kumaraswami, a labour lawyer at the Madras High Court. This is a way to intimidate labour organizers and destroy the non-CITU, non-AITUC left trade unions, which are building up organizations in individual factories all over the country. The documents below include a background of the Pricol incident, the press statement by AICCTU and an appeal (in Tamil) by AICCTU.
Burnt in oil: A fact-finding report on State operations in Dantewada in September-October 2009
October 21 2009. A report from PUCL (Chhattisgarh) , PUDR (Delhi), Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (Dantewada), Human Rights Law Network (Chhattisgarh) , ActionAid (Orissa), Manna Adhikar (Malkangiri) and Zilla Adivasi Ekta Sangh (Malkangiri).
Till now, no substantive information has been given in the media regarding the Gachanpalli killings of 17th September 2009 (during Operation Green Hunt) and 1st October killings at Gompad and Chintagufa villages by security forces. Nor have any reports appeared regarding detentions and arrests of several young men on 1st October.
A message of solidarity from Cordillera Peoples Alliance, Philippines
Dear Comrades and Friends,
The Cordillera Peoples Alliance for the Defense of the Ancestral Domain and for Self Determination, an independent federation of progressive peoples’ organizations, mostly grassroots-based organizations among indigenous communities in Northern Luzon Cordillera, Philippines, hereby endorses the statement against the Indian government’s plans for launching an unprecedented military offensive by army and paramilitary […]
Statement from national platform of adivasi and forest dwellers’ mass organisations (Campaign for Survival and Dignity) on Government offensive
A Pretext to Impose Brutal Repression: the Government’s “Offensive” Is a Formula for Bloodshed and Injustice
The Campaign for Survival and Dignity, a national platform of adivasi and forest dwellers’ mass organisations (listed below) from ten States, unequivocally condemns the reported plans for a military “offensive” by the government in the country’s major forest and tribal areas. This offensive, ostensibly targeted against the CPI (Maoist), is a smoke screen for an assault against the people, especially adivasis, aimed at suppressing all dissent, all resistance and engineering the takeover of their resources.
Yet to learn drought lessons
By Devinder Sharma, Hardnews. September 2 2009.
Food prices are rising not due to a delayed monsoon. It is because of massive hoarding, black market and speculation. Yet, the government takes refuge behind the excuse: markets driven by sentiments
A bad monsoon and the nation gets jolted by the spectre of a haunting drought. As symptoms of acute human suffering and despair begin to appear on the horizon - distress sale of cattle and increasing suicides by farmers - the government swings into a fire-fighting mode.
Ending Africa’s Hunger
By Raj Patel, Eric Holt-Gimenez & Annie Shattuck. The Nation, September 2009.
More than a billion people eat fewer than 1,900 calories per day. The majority of them work in agriculture, about 60 percent are women or girls, and most are in rural Africa and Asia. Ending their hunger is one of the few unimpeachably noble tasks left to humanity, and we live in a rare time when there is the knowledge and political will to do so. The question is, how? Conventional wisdom suggests that if people are hungry, there must be a shortage of food, and all we need do is figure out how to grow more.
Delivery of food supply in India - the edge of the precipice
An Analytical Monthly Review editorial, September 2009.
We now face a qualitative change in our most fundamental economic relationship—delivery of food supply.
The problem is not the variability of the weather. Rather, the situation has arisen from an extended process rooted in the sharp growth in inequality that has accompanied the extension of capitalist social relations in the period of “reform”. The condition of fully half of the population has been steadily weakening over the last decades, growing ever more undernourished. At the same time the governmental tools available to respond to a food crisis have been under continuous attack, and are no longer able to fill their role.
Gurgaon Workers News: Updates from factory struggles
The article sums up workers struggle in 3 factories in the Gurgaon area in North India: Liliput Kids Wear factory, Unistyle ,and Wearwell. It is sourced from Gurgaon Workers News.
Encounter murders: From Ishrat Jahan in Gujarat to the forests of Dantewara
By Bernard De Mello, MRZine. Sept 2009.
This article from MRZine looks at recent investigations that prove that the “encounter deaths” of Jahan and Sheikh, in Gujarat 2004, were cold blooded murders. Gujarat today remains a state where the police are able to kill minorities with impunity, while the judiaciary slowly limps back to life after years of paralysis following 2002. The article looks at encounter killings as an all-India strategem of colonialism, from Batla House in Delhi to the killing forests of Chhattisgarh, ravaged by encounter murders on suspicion of Maoism. The bulk of encounter deaths have been perpetrated in regions of India where state power is being contested or nationalist movements are operational, underscoring that this is a military tactic under a law-and-order mask. -Ed.
Vedic Village: A long history of brutality behind the final destruction
Recently, Vedic Village, an upscale resort sprawling out in Rajarhat (near Kolkata), was torched down by angry villagers. This vent of public anger was the culmination of a history of brutal land acquisition in the area, perpetrated since the 1990’s by the CPI(M) and brought to fruition by armies of local terrors like Gaffar Mollah, Ruidas Mandal, and others. Vedic Village and other real estate projects in Rajarhat are the direct result of forcible acquisition. The following articles trace the recent history of this real estate-Party-musclemen nexus that finally led to the destruction of Vedic Village.
Bastar rally of BSKSS: Demands, attitude towards Maoists and established activism
By Gautam Navlakha and Asish Gupta. August 28, 2009.
This article reports the first rally of a newly formed peasant organisation in Bastar, Chhattisgarh. The rally voiced its protest against corporate landgrab and the complicity of the state. Interestingly, the political backgrounds of members covers the full spectrum, bound together by common demands, and the attitude towards established social activism is one of watchful distance. Equally interesting is the attitude of attendees towards Maoists. This is a nominally edited version of the report on Radicalnotes. - Ed.
PDS: cash instead of food, and other dismantling measures since liberalisation
By Debarshi Das, Sanhati
The first post-liberalisation assault on the Public Distribution System of India came in 1997. Instead of a universal system, beneficiaries were divided into two groups APL and BPL (above and below the poverty line). This drastically reduced the quantum of distribution courtesy bureaucratic machination. From 20.8 million tons in 1991 distribution plummeted to 10.9 million tons in 1999-2000. In Dharavi, one of the world’s largest slums, government officials could find no more than 153 poor families. In a country of 1160 million where three fourth of people cannot afford to spend more than two dollars a day, the central government’s estimates show 65 million poor Indians.
A new trend: Industrialized nations lease fertile land in Africa to meet food demands
By Paul Vallely. August 10 2009, The Independent
This article discusses a new breed of colonialism rampaging across the world - rich nations buying up fertile land in developing countries that can ill afford to sell. In the case of Madagascar, for example, Daewoo has bought half the arable land of the country to grow food for South Korea. The article proposes certain solutions, following the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute - solutions which fall within the category of “negotiating mutually benefitial terms”, such as regulations binding promised jobs and wages in the poor country, or “compulsory sharing of benefits, so that schools and hospitals get built and those living in areas around landgrabs get properly fed”. What is unsaid is that such relief packages have historically been part and parcel of neoliberal onslaught - their purpose is to provide a modicum of policy legitimacy to such deals. The logic of capital, and class interests of local governments and multinationals with whom they negotiate, make sure that there is no “compulsory sharing of benefits” - necessitating resistance politics on the ground rather than ameliorative smokescreens. The myth of job and infrastructure creation in Singur (fertile land grab by national capital) is a useful reference. - Ed.
A basic orientation in the US healthcare debate
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati
There is a wide spectrum of positions in the current debate over health care reform in the US. On one end, the right end of the political spectrum, are those who argue for a “for-profit system” (something like that currently in place in the US), where health care is provided and financed through the market by the private medical-industrial complex (comprising of private health insurance corporations, pharmaceutical companies, private hospitals, and doctors); in this system health care is provided to the citizens by the medical-industrial complex as a by-product of its attempts to create and maintain profits for itself. On the other end of the spectrum, the left end of the political spectrum, are those who argue for a “single-payer system” (something like that currently in place in most other advanced capitalist countries including, UK, Canada, etc.), where health care is financed by a government or quasi-government body but provided largely by private economic agents (hospitals, etc.).
The Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill: Ongoing debates and perspectives
1. Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill: A slow but sure step forward - Ramaswamy R. Iyer
2. West Bengal Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Act - Avijit Guha
3. The real issues behind land acquisition - Pranab Bardhan
The UPA government’s surreptitious attempts to dilute NREGA
By Debarshi Das, Sanhati. August 15 2009.
If one remembers the chequered history the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) had to withstand, the recent surreptitious attempts of the UPA government to dilute it does not come as a surprise.
Hungary: “Where we went wrong” - An interview of GM Tamás
GM Tamás, a prominent Hungarian dissident and now professor of philosophy in Budapest, speaks to Chris Harman about developments in Eastern Europe since the fall of Stalinism. International Socialism, June 24 2009.
Orissa migrants: Back home with the recession, from the brick-kilns of A.P. and the looms of Surat
Global recession penetrates rural Orissa as migrant workers go back home - P.Sainath
More migrations, new destinations - P. Sainath
Social Security Bill 2008 and Migrant workers
The brick-kiln industry and Orissa migrants - Umi Daniel
Lalgarh and the Radicalisation of Resistance: From ‘Ordinary Civilians’ to Political Subjects?
By Saroj Giri. MRZine, July 9 2009. A part of the Lalgarh page.
One image stands out from the Lalgarh resistance. Chattradhar Mahato, the most visible leader of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA), distributing food to ordinary villagers — not as a high-up leader doing charity but as one among them. Is this the ‘new’ image of the Maoist? But maybe Mahato is not a Maoist — he himself denies being one. But if he is not, given his power and influence in the area, the ‘dictatorial’ Maoists must have eliminated him by now? Then maybe he is only being used by them, following their ‘diktat’ out of fear. But a man with the kind of popularity and love from the masses would fear the Maoists? So, is he a Maoist, or like a Maoist, after all? But a Maoist who is this popular among the masses and who does not seem to terrorise them?
Raigad, Maharashtra: Anti-SEZ movement stalls Reliance
By Aseem Shrivastava. Tehelka, July 18 2009
In 2003, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd had submitted a proposal for setting up a multi-product SEZ in Raigad across 14,000 hectares of Maharashtra land (an area the size of Chandigarh) in 45 villages in Pen, Panvel and Uran tehsils. An investment of Rs 40,000 crore and jobs for 20 lakh people were promised. Reliance also claimed its package (Rs 10 lakh per acre and training for a possible job in the factory) for the affected farmers was the best across the country. (A simple survey of other SEZs and industrial projects, though, shows that these promises of employment are rarely met.) As the project gained momentum, the anti-SEZ committee in the area launched a massive agitation, prompting a historic farmers’ referendum in September 2008. It was the first time that a public vote of this kind was sought and taken on an industrial/infrastructure/mining project anywhere in the country. Regardless of its outcome, it set a valuable precedent on ways of seeking consensus on the usage of land being taken over on the pretext of public interest.
Untouchables in Indian polity, 1956-2000: A review from a mainstream political angle
This review is from the book The Untouchables: Subordination, Poverty And The State In Modern India by Oliver Mendelsohn & Marika Vicziany.
Part 1: Introduction Part 2: Untouchable politics during the era of Congress dominance Part 3: The Ambedkarites and the Dalits after Ambedkar Part 4: The new Dalit politics of north India Part 5: Kanshi Ram: from BAMCEF to the Bahujana Samaj Party Part 6: Kanshi Ram and Mayawati in Government Part 7: The surprising durability of the Bahujana Samaj Party Part 8: Ram Vilas Paswan Part 9: Conclusion
Water wars in Faridabad: The retreat of the State and the politics of patronisation
This page is an excerpt from Gurgaon Workers News, July 2009 issue.
Recent industry figures from India indicate that sales of bottled water grew from 189 million USD in 2003 to 599 million USD in 2008 – a growth rate of 216 percent. At a local level this results in the privatisation of a basic necessity - leading immediately to a politics of patronisation and populism. A case study of a working class neighbourhood in Faridabad, North India, is given below.
The Great Himalayan Watershed: A review of the politics of water in the subcontinent
By Kenneth Pomeranz. This article appeared in New Left Review and Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, July 2009
Since we tend to take water for granted, it is almost always a bad sign when it is in the news; and lately there has been all too much water-related news from some of Asia’s most populous nations. [*] The stories have ranged from the distressingly familiar—suicides of drought-hit Indian farmers—to the surprising: evidence that pressure from water in the reservoir behind the new Zipingpu dam may have triggered the massive Sichuan earthquake in May 2008, for example. [1] Meanwhile glaciers, which almost never used to make the news, are now generating plenty of worrisome headlines.
Labour Standards and Globalisation: A Case Study of Implementing Minimum Wages
By Manali Chakrabarti (IDS Kolkata) and Rahul Varman (IIT Kanpur). This article appeared in Indian Journal of Labour Economics, 50,1. It reviews civil society action for implementation of minimum wages for contingent workers at an IIT, and analyses the underlying political economy.
Minimum wage policy has remained in contention with economists and policy makers aligned on both sides of the debate. Increasingly the state has been forced to formally retract these laws under the onslaught of the globalisation of capital. This has resulted in a precipitous drop of wages for workers, especially in the so-called ‘unorganised sector’. The present note is an attempt to capture the process and consequences of institutionalisation of payment of minimum wages in a public sector academic institution.
The Indian approach to climate and energy policy
By Divya Badami Rao and M.V.Ramana. This article was published on July 3, 2008 in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
(1) India won’t commit to reducing its greenhouse gas emission targets unless developed nations such as the United States agree to pay for it. (2) While India’s emissions are relatively small when compared to the developed world, it should still develop much better energy policies. (3) In particular, current Indian energy policies are completely inequitable, as they often focus on meeting the demands of the urban rich at the cost of poverty alleviation and rural development. (4) Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has promised to keep the country’s per-capita emissions below the global average, but he hasn’t considered what that means for future energy planning.
India’s $2 billion private security sector and other tales - Gurgaon Workers News
This page is a slightly edited reproduction of Gurgaon Workers News, May 2009 Issue.
India’s $2 billion private security sector
Crunching numbers: How far does a daily wage of Rs.100 get you in Gurgaon?
Economic crisis hits real estate giants in Gurgaon
Exploitation and resistance at Tecumseh compressor factory, formerly belonging to the multi-national Whirlpool
Long list of workers’ reports on exploitation by local middle capital
Open letters between PCC-CPIML and CPI(Maoist)
The following exchange of open letters between the CPI(Maoist), dated 21st April 2009, and PCC-CPIML, dated 25th May 2009, was received on 7th July 2009. The letters discuss their respective viewpoints regarding the formation of electoral/non-electoral alliances in the Jangalkhand area during the last Lok Sabha elections and their perspectives about the Lalgarh movement. We feel that this exchange of letters is instructive in understanding the underlying logic, on either side, for forming their own tactics in that area. We are committed to providing space to any kind of debates/discussions among radical left parties or organisations, in the interest of broader left solidarity, and therefore we are publishing this exchange of letters. In the present socio-economic circumstances in India and the world, we feel that it is absolutely necessary that all radical left and pro-people forces should come together to resist the neoliberal onslaught on the masses. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that such open, and perhaps more constructive, discussions do take place among all concerned forces.
Giovanni Arrighi: An interview and an obituary
Giovanni Arrighi interviewed by David Harvey
Giovanni Arrighi: Internationalist par excellence
India’s secret torture chambers: A book and an essay
By Anupam Dasgupta, The Week, July 14 2009
Little Terrorist, as the intelligence sleuths came to call him, turned out to be a hard nut to crack. No amount of torture would work on 20-year-old Mohammed Issa, who was picked up from Delhi on February 5, 2006. The Delhi Police believed that he had a hotline to Lashkar-e-Toiba deputy chief Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhwi, who later masterminded the 26/11 attack on Mumbai. At a secret detention centre in Delhi, the police and intelligence officers tried every single torture method in their arsenal-from electric shock to sleep deprivation-to make Issa sing. He stuck to his original line: that he had come from Nepal to visit a relative in Delhi. Only, they refused believe him.
Peasantology: An informal introduction
New Scientist vol 175 issue 2354 - 03 August 2002, page 44
Most of the world’s population live independently of the formal economy. Recognising this, says Teodor Shanin, a sociologist, is the key to removing poverty and inequality. He invented “peasantology” - the study of how people survive in the “informal economy”. He tells Fred Pearce why Western economists are failing the poor.
Bad Omens for the Lower Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta
July 14, 2009. An Analytical Monthly Review Editorial.
The dire consequences of human induced climate change are now most often presented as facing us in the near future. We suggest that the future, as far as the lower Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta is concerned, has arrived.
Even a full fortnight after Cyclone Aila ravaged the Sunderbans, no one — not the government, nor relief workers — knew exactly what it is like in the devastated villages. The exact death toll due to the cyclone itself as well as due to the epidemic aftermath of the cyclone is yet to be gauged.
The Age of the Everyday Billionaire
By P. Sainath, Counterpunch. June 24, 2009.
Another 29 members of the cabinet fall into the Rs. 5 million to Rs.50 million category. If you’re in this bracket, your chances of winning aren’t as great as the 50 million plus, or Platinum Tier, elite. However, you are still 43 times more likely to win than those with less than Rs. 1 million in assets (i.e. almost the whole of India’s population). The remaining ministers, in case you were losing sleep over their condition, fall into the Rs. 1 million to Rs. 5 million club, the cabinet equivalent of BPL (Below Poverty Line). However, there are five years in which to remedy this situation and alleviate the misery of this group.
Venezuela: “A process of nationalisations” after the referendum
By Federico Fuentes, GreenLeft. May 30, 2009.
Addressing the 400-strong May 21 workshop with workers from the industrial heartland of Guayana, dedicated to the “socialist transformation of basic industry”, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez noted with satisfaction the outcomes of discussions: “I can see, sense and feel the roar of the working class.”
Brazil’s economy and the end of the decoupling myth
By Renaud Lambert, Counterpunch. June 14, 2009
In May 2008 the US economy had begun its decline, but in Brazil things still looked fine. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva reckoned that his country was experiencing a “magic moment”: after a 5.67 per cent rise in GDP in 2007, government morale was high. What was going on elsewhere didn’t matter; growth would continue “at its present rate for the next 15 to 20 years”.
Economic Recovery: Is It Time For a Mid-Course Correction? - New School Lectures
On Tuesday, May 19, 2009, The Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA) at The New School for Social Research, held a half-day conference to critically evaluate the Obama administration’s current economic recovery plan. The question that was the focus of the conference was: is it time for a mid-course policy correction of serious magnitude, relating mainly to fiscal policy and bank regulation? Critical perspectives on the economic recovery plan also included discussions on (1) active labor market policies and what else policy makers can do to lessen the impact of the recession on the severity of joblessness, (2) the undue focus among policy makers and the media on GDP and bank health as a marker for a healthy economy.
Peru: Blood Flows in the Amazon
By James Petras. June 10, 2009.
In early June, Peruvian President Alan García, an ally of US President Barack Obama, ordered armored personnel carriers, helicopter gun-ships and hundreds of heavily armed troops to assault and disperse a peaceful, legal protest organized by members of Peru’s Amazonian indigenous communities protesting the entry of foreign multinational mining companies on their traditional homelands. Dozens of Indians were killed or are missing, scores have been injured and arrested and a number of Peruvian police, held hostage by the indigenous protestors were killed in the assault. President García declared martial law in the region in order to enforce his unilateral and unconstitutional fiat granting of mining exploitation rights to foreign companies, which infringed on the integrity of traditional Amazonian indigenous communal lands.
An interview with Christophe Jaffrelot on Indian politics, communalism and Dalit movement
Interviewed by Anoop Kumar, Insight Young Voices magazine. June 15, 2009.
You have been consistently writing on the rise of Hindu nationalism in the country. Recently, we all saw Tehelka’s expose´ of the involvement of the State in the Gujarat pogrom. The whole country felt the shock. However, the Congress government did not respond at all. Even the Left gave a much muted response. Most of us have been outraged. We knew everything; nothing new came out in this expose´ and yet, it was shocking for us.
Security-centric approach cannot resolve Lalgarh conflict
By Sujato Bhadro. June 28, 2009, The Times of India. This page is a part of Sanhati’s Lalgarh reporting.
Unlike Singur-Nandigram, the initial social resistance movement in Lalgarh revolved around police atrocities; with tribal people raising their voice against law enforcing agencies breaking the law of the land. So, this movement is political in nature; a story of demand for the restoration of civil liberties since November 2008. The people of Lalgarh are not concerned about problems of land acquisition, issue of development and displacement; the sole issue is fundamental: the right to life. If we focus on the historical, and oppose the fictional sense of the reality in which the people of Lalgarh live, we will be able to get a proper understanding of the problem.
Interim Report of Fact-finding Team on Demolition of VCA in Chhattisgarh
An all-India fact-finding team visited Chhattisgarh from May 29 to June 1, 2009 in the wake of certain disturbing developments in the State plagued by Maoist violence, state terror, the Salwa Judum campaign and attacks on voluntary organisations (even Gandhian bodies) by the powers that be. The team visited the site of the demolished Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA) at Kanwalnar near Dantewada and run by Himanshu Kumar, a noted Gandhian social activist working among the tribals in Dantewada and Bijapur districts of Bastar region. The demolition of the ashram took place on May 17, 2009. After the visit, the team met with the state Governor, E.S. Narasimhan, and the Superintendent of Police, Dantewada, Rahul Sharma, and submitted a Memorandum to them.
The West’s fantasies of a free-market “New India”
By Pankaj Mishra, The National
Last month India held its 15th general elections. Those who recall some of the previous 14 could only marvel at the great interest the recent round of voting aroused in the western media. Less than a decade ago India was typically depicted in the international press as a poor, backward and often violent nation. Its experiments with democracy may have been unprecedented for a large poor country – but in the West they usually appeared solely in the guise of photographs of peasant women in colorful saris lining up to vote (this ageless staple popped up again in recent weeks). India’s image received a dramatic makeover only in the early years of this century, when the country’s protectionist economy, which was first liberalised in 1991, opened up further to foreign trade and investment.
Global Recession News
June 13, 2009
Both the unemployment rate and the capacity utilization rate (roughly the proportion of total non-labour capacity for production that is being used) are good measures of the level of economic activity in a capitalist economy. Both these indicators show that the US economy is in the deepest recession since the Great Depression.
Monthly Review Editorial, June 2009
The Real Unemployment Rate Hits a 68-Year High - John Miller, Dollars and Sense
Euro unemployment at decade high
EU elections: The decline of social democracy
By Peter Schwarz, World Socialist Website. June 10, 2009.
The most notable result of the European elections held last weekend is the dramatic decline of social democracy.
On average across Europe, social democratic parties received only 22 percent of the vote, six percent less than in the previous European election in 2004. With a turnout of just 43 percent, this means that less than one in ten of the electorate voted for these parties.
Blood at the Blockade: Peru’s Indigenous Uprising
June 13, 2009
Dozens of people are estimated to have been killed in clashes between police and indigenous activists protesting oil and mining projects in the northern Peruvian Amazonian province of Bagua. Peruvian authorities have declared a military curfew, and troops are patrolling towns in the Amazon jungle. Authorities say up to twenty-two policemen have been killed, and two remain missing. The indigenous community says at least forty people, including three children, were killed by the police this weekend.
Price of rice, price of power
By P Sainath. The Hindu, June 10 2009
Now that we have a Cabinet whose assets total close to Rs. 5 billion on its own declaration, with Ministers worth over Rs. 75 million each on average, it will be worth watching how it rises to the challenge of identifying with the poor and the hungry. That Rs. 5- billion figure, painstakingly compiled by the National Election Watch, a coalition of over 1200 civil society organisations working across India, covers 64 of the 79 Ministers. The other 15 are Rajya Sabha members whose updated assets are yet to be computed. True, these figures are skewed by the fact that the top five Ministers alone are worth Rs. 2 billion. However, as the NEW points out, the rest are not destitute. In all, 47 of the 64 are crorepatis. And the remaining 15 won’t harm the score too much when their totals come in.
The Social Meaning of Pensions
By Michael Perelman, MRZine. This article appeared first in 2005.
Pensions offer a wonderful example of the perverse phenomenon of the corporate sector winning support by taking actions that harm individuals. Between 1979 and 1997, the share of employees with defined benefit plans — i.e., plans that promise a specific level of support — fell from 87 percent to 50 percent (Mishel, Bernstein, and Boushey 2003, p. 247). Under defined benefit plans, employers bear the responsibility to provide the promised pensions — a responsibility that they were more than happy to shed.
Financialisation and the Tendency to Stagnation
By Bernard D’mello, EPW. May 9 2009
This is review of the book - The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences by John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff (New York: Monthly Review Press; published in India by Cornerstone Publications, Kharagpur), 2009.
Click here to read the review by Bernard De Mello [PDF, English] »
Social Security Benefits and the New Pension Scheme
The central and many state government employees joining after 1st Janurary, 2004, would not get the benefits of the pay-as-you-go pension scheme. The employees themselves would have to contribute for their own pension fund, matched by equal contributions by the government. This fund might be utilised to invest in financial markets through fund managers, presumably private. In a single swoop the idea of pensions being rights of workers, has been thrown into the neo-liberal dustbin. One reason offered for this is the high return which could be earned in financial markets – a dangerous point needing scant elaboration in view of the recent worldwide turmoil. There has been little resistance from political parties. The Left parties demand for a guaranteed minimum pension income and keeping the fund out of speculation; this does not address the fundamental issue of stripping of citizens’ right to a life of dignity. The article, though a little dated (September 2007), sums up many aspects of the new pension scheme. - Editors, Sanhati. May 31, 2009.
Javed Iqbal’s open letter to the police after the destruction of Vanvasi Chetna Ashram
Javed Iqbal recently wrote 2 stories with photos on binayaksen.net. The First one is about the Anatomy of an encounter in South Bastar and second one is about an Attack On The Village Of Badepalli by the Security Forces. He was roughed up by the police during the demolition of VCA for exposing police brutality, police encounters, and Salwa Judum through these stories. Continue reading his Open Letter to Police - Editors, binyaksen.net
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