Settler Colonialism under a Shroud of Victimhood

THE eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had witnessed the emergence of two different paradigms of colonialism: the first, of which India was the classic example, involved the conquest of countries which had had a history of established central administrations that were sustained by established systems of surplus extraction, and the replacement of those old administrations by colonial regimes.

The Growing Crisis of Unemployment

IN an economy like ours where the work-force is not neatly divided into “the employed” and “the unemployed”, and instead there is massive and growing casualisation of work, measuring unemployment is a tricky business. It necessarily means asking a person how much work that person got over a certain period in the past, because of which the unemployment measure varies depending on what period is taken into account and how much work over this period is taken to constitute employment.

Western Left and the US-China Contradiction

SIGNIFICANT segments of the non-Communist Western Left see the developing contradiction between the United States and China in terms of an inter-imperialist rivalry.

Fascistic Hostility to Evidence

ALL fascistic outfits have one common characteristic: they reject outright all evidence that goes against the narrative they spin; and the Hindutva elements in power in India are no exception. Their narrative presents India as the fastest growing economy in the world where the people never had it so good; but if evidence collected by international agencies or even by the government’s own agencies shows otherwise, then that evidence must be wrong.

Genocide in Gaza

IN response to the attack by Hamas on October 7, Israeli forces have not only pounded the Gaza strip with massive bombing, killing nearly 2000 Palestinians and wounding at least 7000 (till Friday night), but have cut off all supplies of food, electricity, gas and water to Gaza.

The Globalisation of McCarthyism

THE central government’s hounding of Newsclick reminds one of the children’s story about a tiger and a goat drinking water from the same stream. The tiger, wanting an excuse to attack the goat, accuses it of muddying the water it is drinking; when the goat points to the impossibility of this, as the tiger is upstream and the water is flowing not to the tiger but away from it, the tiger says: “well, your father had muddied the water I was drinking”.The Modi government has been after Newsclick for months.

Globalised Capital and National Leadership

ONE of the most intriguing questions at present is why Europe’s political leadership has become complicit in what appear to be US efforts at undermining European economies.

Destroying Forests for Profits

THE Modi government, ever solicitous of corporate interests, has launched a plan whereby real estate developers and other corporates will be allowed to destroy large swathes of India’s forest cover for starting projects that rake in profits.

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.

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Peoples Democracy

ECONOMIC NOTES