Capitalism and Hunger
Jan 20th 2012, C.P. Chandrasekhar
After close to 65 years of independent national development, the level of child malnutrition in India remains unacceptably high. The capitalist growth of the worst variety fostered by neoliberalism and the consequent refusal of the government to directly address the problem explains the cause for this ''national shame''.
Protest in the Age of Crises
Nov 2nd 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
If the Occupy Wall Street movement is to acquire strength to actually confront the might of finance capital and the state it controls, it must find greater cohesion, with an organisational structure and a programme that goes beyond anger against the capitalist system and the condition to which it has reduced the majority.
Karuturistan, Ethiopia: The fire next time?
Oct 21st 2011, Alemayehu G. Mariam
Karuturi is an Indian MNC that currently owns 2,500 sq km of virgin fertile land in Gambala, Ethiopia, where it practices corporate farming. The project has not only displaced local inhabitants from their homeland, it is also impoverishing the local community by bringing in farmers from India and thereby denying local people the right to livelihood. The produce is meant to be exported to the international market, whereas Ethiopia is one of the largest recipients of foreign food aid.
Much More Needed to Help the Poor
Oct 19th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
The Planning Commission's Approach Paper to the Twelfth Plan is not only disappointing, but also disturbing in its attitude towards poverty reduction. Multidimensional approach to poverty, which any sensible government would adopt today, is ignored in the Approach paper and the policy interventions that have been proposed are pathetic.
''Planning'' for Whom?
Oct 12th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
There are some fundamental changes in the Planning Commission's current perspective relative to the earlier periods. In the post-Independence years, pursuit of profit was not seen as being in the social interest and this was reflected in the nature of development planning. But now, profit is the sole motive and the role of the state is to merely facilitate this by incentivising corporate activity.
Approaching the 12th Plan
Sep 26th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
Considering India’s slow growth of employment in the recent period because of our demographic bulge and increasing numbers of educated youth in search of productive employment, the need of the hour is to redesign our growth strategy and use social policy and social expenditure to generate more employment as employment creation is the most important mechanism for achieving inclusive economic growth.
Nix to Both Teams: People's power can only work within a structured
system
Sep 12th 2011, Ashok Mitra
Although people's power is a beautiful idea, it can work only within the format of a structured system. While the Anna Hazare movement leaves lessons for the government and the Parliament, it should also make the nation realise the perils from excesses indulged in the name of the people's will.
Afterword on a Movement
Sep 7th 2011, Prabhat Patnaik
Any undermining of parliamentary democracy represents a huge social retrogression. But a positive fall-out from the Hazare movement hopefully is self-rectification by the ''democratic State'' in the face of this challenge. However, the Hazare group's assault on parliamentary institutions and exclusive emphasis on corruption within the state machinery, to the exclusion of the corporate sector and civil society groups, could turn out to be a part of an agenda of converting Indian democracy into a ''corporatocracy''.
Grabbing Global Farmland
Sep 7th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
It is essential to fight the irresponsible and exploitative behavior manifested by Indian companies involved in the recent trend in large-scale overseas acquisitions of farmland and the undemocratic processes underlying these land grabs. Without this, the struggle for greater economic justice within India will also be undermined.

India's Role in the New Global Farmland Grab
Aug 23rd 2011. Rick Rowden
This report explores the role of Indian agricultural companies that have been involved in the recent trend in large-scale overseas acquisitions of farmland. In addition to examining the various factors driving the ''outsourcing'' of domestic food production, the report also explores the negative consequences of such a trend. It looks at why critics have called the trend ''land grabbing'' and reviews the impacts on local peoples on the ground, who are often displaced in the process.
America's Debt-ceiling Crisis
Aug 4th 2011, Prabhat Patnaik
The compromise between Obama and the Republicans to end the US debt-ceiling crisis has done great damage in terms of a sharp regression in income distribution and a remarkable shift to the Right in the US, as well as an aggravation of the recession in the world economy.
Changing Guard at the IMF?
Jul 6th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
The change of guard at the IMF would not make a difference as long as there is no significant change in the Fund's approach to economic policies. Despite the experience of continually getting it wrong in so many countries over so many decades, the Fund is still persisting in imposing the blatantly counterproductive strategy of fiscal austerity everywhere.
Why is India Suddenly so Angry about Corruption?
Jun 18th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
Post liberalisation, market-oriented reforms have delivered higher aggregate growth but also significantly increased economic inequality and material insecurity for the majority of India's population. The recent outrage against corruption in India reflects a great betrayal felt by a populace that had been told that the era of neoliberal economic policies would end vices that were supposedly associated with greater government involvement in economic activity.
Commodities and Corruption
Jun 6th 2011, Prabhat Patnaik
Capitalism is supposed to bring in modernity, which includes a secular polity. Many have even defended neo-liberal reforms on the grounds that they hasten capitalist development and hence our march to modernity. But the incident of four senior central ministers kow-towing most abjectly to a ''Baba'' proves that neo-liberal India, far from countering pre-modernity, is actually strengthening it. This proves the leftist argument that in countries embarking late on capitalist development, the bourgeoisie allies itself with the feudal and semi-feudal elements that impedes the march to modernity.
The Left and Elections in West Bengal
May 18th 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh
Assembly elections in West Bengal have resulted in defeat of the Left Front government after 34 years in power. However, a detailed look at the voting shares shows that the Left parties still managed to garner more than 41 per cent of the votes which by no means can be taken as showing a big decline in popular support for the Left among the people in the state.
The Growth-discrimination Nexus
Apr 13th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
It is argued by many that market forces break open age-old social norms, particularly those of caste and gender. However, unfortunately, capitalism in India, especially in its most recent globally integrated variant, has used social discrimination and exclusion to its own benefit, to take forward the growth tory.
Why West Bengal Needs a Left Government
Apr 4th 2011, Jayati Ghosh
It is not only for taking forward the struggle for democracy but also the successful achievements of the Left government in the areas of land distribution and health that West Bengal should have a government headed by a revitalised Left Front. It is essential to consolidate these achievements and move forward, rather than allow them to be dissipated or even reversed.
The Paradox of Capitalism
Feb 4th 2011, Prabhat Patnaik
The fact that the bulk of the world's population continues to struggle for subsistence is because of the incubus of an exploitative social order; but this is often obscured by analyses that continue to cling to the illusion that the logic of compound interest will overcome the ''economic problem of mankind''.
Policy Paralysis and Inflation
Feb 3rd 2011, C.P. Chandrasekhar
The price trends over the last one-and-a-half years suggest that inflation is being driven by factors which are structurally embedded in the economic environment generated by the government's neoliberal reform agenda adopted for two decades now. Further, neoliberal thinking is leading not only to policy paralysis and absurd reasoning, but also to policy responses that are contrary to what is needed.
The Criminalization of Dissent
Jan 13th 2011, Prabhat Patnaik
The official position idealising economic growth as a national goal and vilifying any opposition to it as anti-national, is reification. But, equally importantly, it is dangerous, both because it criminalizes ideological dissent and because it implicitly justifies corporate control over the State.
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