CPI(M) Polit Bureau has issued the following statement on February 1THE Union Budget 2023-24 comes at a time when the Indian economy slowed down before the pandemic struck, worsened during the two pandemic years and the post pandemic recovery is adversely impacted by the global economic slowdown moving towards a possible recession. Under these circumstances this budget should have addressed the central issues of increasing people’s purchasing power with job generation and boosting the growth of domestic demand.This budget fails to meet this situation.

THE union budget presented by the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman is nothing but a political jumla. It does not utter a word on the grim economic situation facing the country, though the Economic Survey sought to camouflage it by presenting a rosy picture.The Economic Survey itself predicted a decline in GDP to 6.5 per cent in 2022-23. Such downward spiral in growth for four consecutive years is unprecedented in the history of independent India. There is de-growth in the manufacturing sector, which came down to 1.6 per cent against 9.9 per cent last fiscal.

THE most outstanding feature of the Indian economy today is the sluggish increase in real consumption expenditure. Between 2019-20 and 2022-23 for instance the per capita real consumption expenditure has grown by less than 5 per cent which is less than the rate of growth of the gross domestic product. Even the meagre recovery from the depths of the pandemic in short has been investment-led rather than consumption-led.

TO think of Aleida Guevara as just the ‘heir’ to her father’s legacy, would be to underestimate her. In one of his last letters to his young children, Che Guevara advised them to “always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the best quality in a revolutionary.” His daughter Aleida, a physician, human rights advocate and an important Cuban political figure in her own right has throughout her life showed a remarkable eagerness to fulfill her father's wishes in every respect.

THE All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) sees the Modi government’s last full budget before the general elections of 2024, as an attempt to hoodwink women and working people of the country in order to promote the agenda of big corporate houses. The narrative unleashed by the government in the name of the budget, is designed to perpetrate false hoods and show that all is well, and people are becoming prosperous.