On the Current Food Price Inflation in India

THE current upsurge in prices in India is led by food prices. In July 2023 while retail inflation was 7.44 per cent (over July of the previous year), food price inflation, which covers all food items including foodgrains, vegetables, milk products and such like, was 11.5 per cent.

The Silences of the Delhi Declaration

THE G-20 meeting in Delhi was occurring in the midst of an acute economic crisis of the world economy. The advanced capitalist economies are expected by the IMF to witness a growth slowdown from 2.7 per cent in 2022 to 1.3 per cent in 2023; according to an alternative estimate by the IMF their growth in 2023 could even fall below 1 per cent. Since their rate of growth of labour productivity is likely to exceed this figure, it would mean a substantial increase in unemployment in the metropolis.

Believing One’s Own False Theories

LIBERAL bourgeois writers tend to explain the problems that arise under capitalism not by the immanent tendencies of the system but by the capriciousness of particular governments. This way they can continue to believe in their own false theories that prettify capitalism, while putting the blame for the travails it generates on political bloody-mindedness. One such instance of prettification is the portrayal of the system as one where international trade is beneficial for all.

Behind BRICS Expansion

AT the Johannesburg summit of the BRICS countries, it was decided to expand the group beyond its original five, namely, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, to include six more countries. These are: Argentina, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These six it appears were chosen out of a list of twenty-two countries which had been keen to join the BRICS grouping. What is more, government sources in South Africa which currently chairs BRICS have revealed that as many as 40 countries have been interested in joining the group.

The Destruction of Universities

WHEN BJP rule in the country is dead and gone, a good deal of the damage it has caused to the Indian society, polity and economy will no doubt be reversed. But there are at least two areas where such reversal will be difficult: one is the architectural vandalism it has perpetrated.

The Stalled Decolonisation

MUCH of the ex-colonial world, having set up dirigiste regimes to wrest control over its natural resources from metropolitan capital and to build up industries behind protectionist walls, was sought to be re-assimilated into imperialist hegemony through the neo-liberal economic order; but in one segment of this world decolonisation itself was never completed. The former French colonies of West Africa belong to this segment.

Shooting the Messenger: Adverse Health Trends Revealed in the NFHS (5) 2019-2021

THE nutritional status of the Indian population has been going down slowly but surely during the last three decades, the period of neo-liberal economic reforms. The five-yearly National Sample Survey reports on nutritional intake in India have been registering decline in per capita calorie intake as well as protein intake (but rise in fat intake, concentrated with the top spending groups). The nutritional decline started earliest in rural India, with urban areas joining in the decline later.

The Problem with “Universal Basic Income”

MANY economists have been advocating a universal basic income for India, an idea that was mooted even in the official Economic Survey for 2016-17. Of course the practical proposals towards this end have varied, some suggesting a common universal transfer to all persons below a certain income, and others suggesting a graded transfer depending on how badly off an individual happens to be.

The Poverty of UN Poverty Estimates

ON April 3 this year, the minister of state for planning, Rao Inderjeet Singh, said in the Rajya Sabha that the government had no data after 2011-12 for estimating poverty, and therefore had no idea how many people had been lifted out of poverty since then. On July 18 however the UNDP announced that between 2005 and 2019, India had lifted 415 million persons out of poverty; it had of course no information for the post-pandemic period, but for the pre-pandemic period what it said generated much hype.

When Can There Be a Fall in the Rate of Profit?

SEVERAL major economists have put forward theories predicting a falling tendency of the rate of profit under capitalism; Marx had seen in this fact an awareness on their part of the essential transitoriness of the capitalist system. But while some of these theories have logical validity, others do not. Among the latter is Adam Smith’s theory.Adam Smith had attributed the falling tendency of the rate of profit to the fact of “excessive” capital accumulation.

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Peoples Democracy

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