A New Temple, a New Mosque

A New Temple, a New Mosque Even as a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court seems ready to hear the case about the Ayodhya site where the Babri mosque (said to have been built in the 1520s) stood until its demolition in December 1992, the central government has asked the Court to release from its…

Modi’s Startling Pre-Election Budget, Massaged by Creative Accounting

Modi’s Startling Pre-Election Budget, Massaged by Creative Accounting Let’s get one thing clear. This is not an interim Budget, whatever the government finally agreed to call it. The sweeping promises made on both expenditure and taxation fronts are well beyond the limited minor changes that are supposed to be allowed in a vote-on-account or interim…

Budget 2019: Neither Interim, nor Substantial

Budget 2019: Neither Interim, nor Substantial In a pre-election budget speech filled with propaganda about the supposed developmental achievements of the Narendra Modi government, acting finance minister Piyush Goyal read out a text that both window-dressed the revised estimates and violated all norms that should apply to an interim Budget.   Even while engaged in…

Yellow Vests and Red Unions Strike Together

Yellow Vests and Red Unions Strike Together On February 5, as the Macron government pushed harsh repressive laws against demonstrators through the National Assembly, the Yellow Vests joined with France’s unions for the first time in a day-long, nation-wide “General Strike.”   At the very moment when in Paris the lower house was voting to…

Agroecology and the Fight Against Deadly Capitalist Agriculture

Agroecology and the Fight Against Deadly Capitalist Agriculture Food and agriculture across the world is in crisis. Food is becoming denutrified and unhealthy and diets less diverse. There is a loss of biodiversity, which threatens food security, soils are being degraded, water sources polluted and depleted and smallholder farmers, so vital to global food production,…

Some ‘Reservations’ on the Modi Government’s Reservation for EWS

Some ‘Reservations’ on the Modi Government’s Reservation for EWS I   Since independence and even earlier, India has been characterised by an enduring duality in which the reality of an inegalitarian and oppression-ridden society has co-existed with a widespread and even growing urge for equality and justice. The inequalities prevailing in Indian society are multi-dimensional…

Why Universal Basic Income is Fraught With Serious Problems

Linking Aadhaar to Bank Accounts will Destroy the Banking System With Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s announcement recently at Raipur that his party had taken a “historic decision” to introduce an income guarantee scheme for the poor, and with the general anticipation that the Narendra Modi government’s last budget will also announce an income support scheme…

Gandhi and Communal Harmony

Gandhi and Communal Harmony Indian society is going through difficult times. In the name of religion horrific violence is going on. In this violence, innocent people get killed and generally those guilty of violence are not punished. This violence is possible due to the hate which has been created in society, hate against religious minorities….