India’s oldest Socialist Weekly!
Editor: Dr. G.G. Parikh | Associate Editor: Neeraj Jain | Managing Editor: Guddi
The IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva has now openly admitted that the year 2023 will witness the slowing down of the world economy to a point where as much as one-third of it will see an actual contraction in gross domestic product.
The sharp and apparently intriguing fall in industrial production in October, and feeble post-Covid recovery, points to a deep-rooted malaise in the Indian economy.
There is an important problem with the claim that higher GDP growth itself leads to greater welfare for the people even if the tax-GDP ratio is small. The experience all over the world shows that building a welfare state requires a huge increase in fiscal effort.
Because of the outflow of finance from elsewhere in the world to the US, all major currencies are weakening against the dollar, including the euro and the pound-sterling. This article is about the weakening of third world currencies, of which the rupee is a prime example.
The most intriguing question with regard to Liz Truss’ resignation as the prime minister of Britain after a mere 44 days in office is this: what is it about her economic programme that the “market” (read “finance capital”) found unpalatable?
The 2022 Global Hunger Index shows India occupying the 107th position among 121 countries. This should come as no surprise. Several scholars have used data on per capita daily calorie intake, and per capita annual foodgrain availability to point out that hunger in the country is acute and growing.
The current fall in the rupee is structural in nature and hence non-transient. It has been caused by two specific factors neither of which is transient: one is a widening of the current deficit, and the other is a net outflow of finance from the economy to dollars or dollar-denominated assets.
A bizarre drama is unfolding in front of our eyes. The Modi government which has been giving away hundreds of thousands of crores of rupees as tax concessions to the monopolists, has expressed its opposition to what it calls “freebies”, that is, subsidies to other segments of the population.
Neo-liberalism ends up getting enmeshed in stagnation and mass unemployment from which there is no exit. Because of this dead-end, it imposes a neo-fascist political regime upon the country. Overthrowing it is a difficult task; it can be accomplished only by the widest mobilisation of the working people.
There is a common belief that since the Scandinavian countries developed capitalist economies without acquiring colonies, they refute the claim that capitalist development necessarily requires imperialism. This argument is based on a misconception, not just about Scandinavia but about imperialism itself.
Janata Weekly is India’s oldest independent socialist weekly.
Ever since its founding in 1946, Janata has voiced its principled dissent against all conduct and practice that is detrimental to the cherished values of nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism, while upholding the integrity and the ethical norms of healthy journalism. For more than seventy years now, week after week, it has continued to analyse the changes taking place in the country and the world from a socialist standpoint, and thus promote the spread of socialist ideology in the country.
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