By P. Sudhir

The heart and soul of parliamentary democracy lie in the essential process of holding free and fair elections – a process that ensures a level playing field for all political parties. Owing to this feature, parliamentary democracy is often regarded as electoral democracy. It is not for nothing that the Constituent Assembly, which deliberated for two years before adopting the Constitution on January 26, 1950, addressed the various aspects of ensuring free and fair elections to the legislative assemblies and parliament in an extremely elaborate manner.

Naturally, this detailed blueprint for conducting elections placed central importance on the independent and bipartisan functioning of the Election Commission of India (ECI). To ensure that the ECI remained free from partisan political influence and functioned independently of both the union and state governments, wide and adequate powers were conferred upon it to place it in a position of absolute authority.

This mandate is enshrined in Article 324 of the Indian Constitution, which states that the Election Commission shall be vested with the superintendence, direction, and control of elections to parliament, state legislatures, and the offices of the President and Vice-President. The Election Commission is also responsible for preparing electoral rolls and conducting these elections.

Over the last 75 years, the electoral system has operated with a fair degree of integrity, transparency, and in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution. Despite minor aberrations, the ECI had earned respect both within India and across the world.

However, this scenario has changed since the Narendra Modi-led BJP government assumed office. The composition of the Commission has become a source of controversy, especially due to the manner in which the Supreme Court’s recommendations on the composition of Search Committee — responsible for appointing the Chief Election Commissioner and other Commissioners — have been undermined, bringing the process under the absolute control and stranglehold of the executive. More importantly, the first Modi government introduced highly outrageous amendments to political funding of elections by allowing anonymous and unlimited corporate donations. This has fundamentally altered the landscape of electoral financing, enabling a dangerous quid pro quo between corporate interests and elected governments.

When the Supreme Court struck down the provisions enabling Electoral Bonds – terming the scheme unconstitutional – it exposed the pattern of political funding to public scrutiny. Not only was there clear evidence of disproportionate gains for the BJP compared to other political parties, but the manner in which these bonds were collected also revealed major financial irregularities and provided the clearest evidence of quid pro quo arrangements.

Other issues have also emerged in the public domain, such as concerns regarding the integrity of the composite Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system. Numerous questions persist about technical details such as the source code and sanitisation protocols for the machines that are crucial to ensuring transparency and absolute integrity. The debate around these concerns remains unresolved.

In recent years, particularly in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the partisan role of the Election Commission of India (ECI) has become increasingly visible. The ECI’s inaction in the face of the BJP’s brazen attempts to shield the prime minister and the home minister, and its failure to check the politicisation of the Pulwama-Balakot incidents to construct a security-centric, muscular nationalism narrative during election campaign facilitated a serious breach of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC).

This brings us to a crucial issue: the institutionalisation of political parties’ role in shaping the conduct of elections. Traditionally, the ECI has based its major decisions and measures on consultations with, and suggestions from, political parties. The MCC itself is not a statutory provision, but rather an expression of political consensus across the spectrum.

The current concern relates to the Special Intensive Revision of the Electoral Roll ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections. The present term of the Bihar Assembly ends on November 22, 2025, and elections must naturally be held before that date. On June 24, 2025, the ECI issued a set of documents to initiate the revision process: a four-page press note, a nineteen-page letter to the Chief Electoral Officer of Bihar, a three-page order, nine pages of detailed guidelines, a two-page enumeration form including a declaration format, and a two-page declaration form with an indicative list of documents to be submitted in support of the declaration.

These detailed documents raise several serious questions. The first is one of chronology. The press note was issued on June 24, 2025, and the cut-off date for concluding the Special Intensive Revision has been set for July 1, 2025. In the interim, Electoral Registration Officers are required to print pre-filled enumeration forms (in duplicate) for all existing electors, distribute them to the respective Booth Level Officers (BLOs), and conduct training for the BLOs. The BLOs, in turn, must distribute the forms door-to-door, collect the filled forms, and verify them. In addition, higher officials must carry out rationalisation and rearrangement, finalise the proposed restructuring of polling stations, get the list of polling stations approved, publish the draft Electoral Rolls by August 1, 2025, and the final Electoral Rolls by September 30, 2025. The intervening two-month period is meant for the filing of claims and objections.

Even a cursory reading of these near-encyclopedic sized documents reveals their bizarre nature. Equally questionable is the justification offered for this intensive revision: rapid urbanisation, frequent migration, eligibility of new voters, non-reporting of deaths, and inclusion of names of foreign illegal immigrants. The revision is aimed to update the rolls with January 1, 2003 as the base reference date. These issues have persisted for over two decades. By this logic, the ECI is implying that elections held in Bihar over the last 22 years were compromised – an allegation that raises troubling questions about the legitimacy of past governments.

Although the documents briefly refer to the cooperation of political parties, the ECI has, in practice, undertaken this ‘grand exercise’ without any consultation with them. The invocation of illegal immigrants and the stringent documentation requirements strongly suggest a backdoor introduction of the NRC. There are numerous other gaps, both minor and major, in this entire exercise. It is clear that under the guise of a Special Intensive Revision, a significant number of deletions will be carried out in the name of “cleansing” the electoral rolls. This will particularly impact Bihar’s poor and working-class population, many of whom lack both digital and physical access due to their migratory circumstances.

This is Maharashtra in reverse, where between the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, 39 lakh new voters were added to the rolls in just five months, defying demographic logic.

The final message is loud and clear: this exercise is intended to create a fresh bogey of polarisation under the pretext of infiltration. The Special Intensive Revision cannot proceed in its current form. Opposition parties have raised their voices. The ball is now squarely in the ECI’s court – and the constitutional spirit must not be abandoned. (IPA Service)

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By P. Sudhir

It may appear rather unusual to recall the inglorious sequence of events that began at midnight on June 25, 1975, with the declaration of the Internal Emergency.

However, we are reminded of those immortal words of wisdom: ‘those who tend to forget the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them.’ These words compel us to revisit that dark chapter in the history of Indian democracy.

The late 1960s had dealt a blow to the Congress party’s monopoly on power, with opposition parties securing victories in several states. In response, Mrs Indira Gandhi repositioned herself through a series of progressive-sounding slogans such as Garibi Hatao, bank nationalisation, and the abolition of the privy purse. Departing from traditional political practice, she concentrated power in herself, bypassing strong state-level leaders and directly appealing to the masses at the grassroots.

This approach yielded some gains for Mrs Gandhi. However, what truly bolstered her bid for political hegemony was India’s intervention in support of the Bangladesh liberation struggle. The eventual establishment of an independent Bangladesh and the decisive defeat of Pakistan significantly enhanced her stature. The presence of the Soviet Union also played a crucial role in deterring potential US intervention aimed at rescuing Pakistan’s military regime.

This reinforced Mrs Gandhi’s stature and ensured her victory in the 1971 general elections. Nevertheless, this overall picture could not stop the CPI(M), which emerged as the single largest party in the West Bengal Assembly. But, this was not allowed to progress naturally. The 1972 assembly elections were thoroughly rigged, paving the way for nearly half a decade of semi-fascist repression. This period of authoritarianism seamlessly merged with the declaration of the Emergency on the midnight of June 25, 1975.

During much of the Emergency, Gandhi’s political opponents were imprisoned, and the press was censored. Over 10,000 political opponents, journalists, and activists were jailed under her regime. Meanwhile, the country was grappling with a series of economic challenges stemming from the recent war with Pakistan, droughts, and the global oil crisis of 1973. Rising unemployment and inflation further fuelled public discontent and political opposition. These growing pressures, coupled with Mrs Gandhi’s sense of personal insecurity and legal setbacks – particularly the threat of losing her Lok Sabha membership – contributed to the decision to impose Emergency.

In essence, the Emergency of 1975 was declared due to a combination of political, social, and economic factors. The government invoked Article 352 of the Constitution, which permits the declaration of an Emergency in the event of war, external aggression, or internal disturbance. The official justification cited threats to national security and public order, leading to the suspension of fundamental rights and the concentration of power in the executive.

Exposing the political dynamics that led to the Emergency, A K Gopalan, leader of the CPI(M) group in the Lok Sabha, stated during the debate on the Statutory Resolution for Approval of the Emergency proclamation on July 21, 1975:“The warning given by our Party about the rise of the tendency towards totalitarian and one-party dictatorship over the last three years has proved true with the sudden declaration of the new Emergency.”He went on to say that this abrupt move by the ruling party to extricate itself and its leader from a deepening personal and political crisis was a sign of weakness, not strength. It was designed to crush opposition voices and people’s movements. He also exposed the false narrative that this Emergency was aimed against the extreme Right and Left adventurists.

The inevitable followed, and the Congress, along with Indira Gandhi, could not avert political defeat. The eighteen-month Emergency has gone down in contemporary Indian history as a grave aberration and a sordid disruption of democracy. A broad coalition of forces ensured the restoration of democracy following the 1977 Lok Sabha elections.

Today, Narendra Modi invokes the Emergency era, describing its imposition on June 25, 1975, as a “black spot on the Constitution” of India. He has declared, “These 50 years since the Emergency remind us to protect our Constitution and democracy with pride. The countrymen must resolve that such a travesty will never be allowed to happen again. We commit ourselves to ensuring a vibrant democracy and fulfilling the common man’s dreams as outlined by the Indian Constitution.” However, this posturing is increasingly turning into a great hoax – an attempt to camouflage the RSS-BJP’s own most obnoxious assault on Indian democracy, as it has unfolded over the past eleven years.

Looking back fifty years later, the Emergency can be seen as the first major onslaught on India’s democratic system – one that severely curtailed civil liberties and democratic rights. But it is a mistake, as many tend to do, to draw a direct comparison between the Emergency of 1975 and the present situation. The past decade under Modi is often referred to as an “undeclared Emergency,” but such a comparison is misplaced on several counts.

The current scenario has emerged against the backdrop of a global resurgence of the ultra-right, amidst a changed correlation of political forces in favour of imperialism. This phase has ushered in an era of finance capital driven global economies, marked by sharp inequality, rampant unemployment, and overwhelming corporate dominance. Accompanying this are unprecedented levels of identity-based polarisation and a relentless hate campaign, fostering the ‘othering’ of fellow citizens in both economic and social spheres.

Thus, the present assault on democracy and constitutional principles is far more insidious. It has led to the rise of institutionalised authoritarianism – or what some observers term “electoral autocracy.”

In the Indian context, this authoritarian shift has been spearheaded by the RSS, injecting the toxic ideology of Hindutva, which seeks to fundamentally transform the very idea of India. This idea of India – born from the anti-colonial struggle – was anchored in a democratic, secular, socially just, and federal republic. The current onslaught is therefore more pervasive and stifling, aimed at dismantling the foundational principles of Indian citizenship.

In hindsight, the 1975 Emergency now appears almost amateurish compared to the full-fledged authoritarianism we are experiencing today. While the current regime may seem harder to dislodge, the experience of fighting back against the Emergency in the 1970s should inspire confidence. A people united, with the will to resist the pernicious ideology of the RSS and reclaim democracy, can still meet and overcome today’s challenge. (IPA Service)

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By P. Sudhir

Yaqeen Hammad, a 12-year-old Palestinian girl, was shredded into pieces by an Israeli missile attack on her residence. Yaqeen has been aptly called the Anne Frank of Gaza. Like Anne, who kept a diary in an attic in a Holocaust-ravaged, Nazi-occupied neighbourhood, Yaqeen documented the horrors around her. Her diaries – digital this time – became a record of the brutalities faced by her people.

Ironically, the present-day Israeli Zionists, who invoke the Holocaust to justify their moral rationale for the State of Israel and recount their suffering, are now adopting similar oppressive attitudes. Yaqeen moved from one refugee camp to another, shot videos, and posted them on Instagram, bringing global attention to the gruesome realities in Gaza. More than a media activist, she was also involved in humanitarian aid, helping thousands of hapless Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza.

The phrase “live-streamed genocide” has gained currency – coined by Amnesty International – thanks to brave social media activists like Yaqeen. The targeting of children in Gaza is not accidental; it is the outcome of a sinister ideology that labels even innocent children as collaborators of Hamas. This notion is deeply ingrained in the hysteria whipped up by Zionist politicians. Moshe Feiglin, a close associate of the Netanyahu government, even stated emphatically: “Every baby in Gaza is an enemy.” The depravity of such statements is unprecedented. Some extremists have gone so far as to support wiping out all such children as a military objective.

The latest Israeli plan reportedly involves deploying reinforced army units to capture and “clean out” Gaza’s 365 square kilometres – 70 per cent of which has already been turned into “no-go zones” for Palestinians. Most of Gaza’s population could be pushed to Rafah, the southernmost city, which has itself been virtually razed. Cities like Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah are now synonymous with daily destruction.

Perhaps the most disturbing element of the Israeli plan is the forced relocation of Palestinians into Israeli-controlled zones, ironically termed “humanitarian zones.” There, ration packets are distributed by private security contractors tied to Israeli-vetted aid organisations. Aid has been politicised and militarized – used as a tool for coercion. This design enables a protracted occupation, with Palestinians confined to increasingly smaller areas and Israel controlling all access to necessities. Reportedly, Donald Trump even involved himself personally in setting up an aid organisation outside UN oversight to carry out this militarised aid programme.

Netanyahu’s cabinet has code-named the military mission “Gideon’s Chariots.” Whether it is truly intended to pressure Hamas into releasing hostages or simply a cover for collective punishment is clear from the scale of destruction.

However, the intensity of the military operation has forced some changes in western leadership’s tone. In a joint statement, the UK, France, and Canada condemned the humanitarian crisis, calling it “intolerable.” They questioned the inadequacy of the food aid plan and said: “We condemn the abhorrent language recently used by Israeli government officials. Permanent forced displacement is a breach of international humanitarian law.” While initially supporting Israel’s right to self-defense after Hamas’ October 7 attack, they now strongly oppose the expansion of military operations in Gaza.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated: “Humanitarian aid must never be politicised,” emphasizing that the only viable resolution is a two-State solution.

Yet, in the absence of US pressure – especially with Donald Trump’s silence – it is uncertain whether Netanyahu will heed this advice.

Francesca Albanese, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, was forthright: “Most member states remain inactive at best or are actively aiding and abetting Israel’s criminal conduct.” She referred particularly to western and some Gulf nations. She also warned that Israel risks becoming a pariah state, given its relentless assault not only on Palestinians but also on the United Nations.

It is clear that this tragedy stems from the complicity – wilful or not – of nations that backed the 1948 UN plan creating Israel. The Zionist ideology of ethnic cleansing was evident from the outset. Jewish historian Ilan Pappé, whose family suffered during the Holocaust, detailed these intentions in his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, beginning with the 1948 Nakba. This design is now unfolding – with Donald Trump’s grandiose plan to turn Gaza into a tourist riviera adding insult to injury.

We must understand why Israel is pursuing this hysterical campaign in Gaza post–October 7. Regardless of Hamas’ military capacity, their actions challenged the myth of Israel’s security invincibility. This campaign could not have proceeded without active western complicity – especially from the US.

Without a civilized State-to-State relationship between Israelis and Palestinians, military might can never secure lasting peace.

What we have witnessed in India is also unprecedented. Historically, Indian leadership – from Gandhi to Nehru – unambiguously supported the Palestinian cause. There was a national consensus. However, the rise of Hindutva forces has changed this completely. Hindutva and Zionism share a common ideology: religious identity-based nationhood morphing the very nature of the State. They are ideological soulmates. From the early days of the RSS, its leaders admired Zionist ideology. Contemporary Hindutva, fuelled by Islamophobia, is now supporting Israel’s campaign of destruction.

This alliance seeks to redefine the conflict – not as one for Palestinian liberation, but as a religious war between Jews and Muslim Palestinians. This narrative is bolstered by growing military and security partnerships between Modi’s India and Netanyahu’s Israel.

The task ahead is clear: international solidarity with Palestine is growing. Signs of shifting western response suggest that in the 21st century, Gaza has become an existential test for modern civilization. Indian people must mobilise and pressure the Modi government to denounce Israel’s intolerable actions. The responsibility rests with us all. (IPA Service)

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By P Sudhir

People on both sides of the border were relieved. The four-day-long military engagement between India and Pakistan came to a close on the late afternoon of May 10. Despite this, gunshots were heard late in the night. But later, the DGMOs of both countries confirmed that the ceasefire has held and war clouds have receded for now.

However, these three weeks have unfolded a sequence of developments which is dramatic, unravelling a disastrous pattern in South Asia. The chain of events began with the grotesque killing of 26 people, including a local Kashmiri pony handler who sacrificed his life to save innocent tourists. It is clear that the terrorist attack was conducted targeting tourists choosing victims based on religious profiling. Evidence furnished by the army clearly establishes the involvement of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), who were in telephonic communication with the killers. If anything was left to imagination, the subsequent military engagement brought out images of the terrorists who had fallen being honoured by the Pakistani establishment.

With this reality laid bare, there was no other option but to initiate punitive action. The remarkable unity of the people – justifiably outraged – was widely evident. Political parties in the country offered support to the government for the anti-terror operation. However, it was abundantly made clear that the actions would be directed against the terrorists and not at launching an all-out war.

It was at this point that an obnoxious campaign of hate started – directed against Kashmiris particularly, and at Muslims in general. The long-nurtured infrastructure of hate was activated. Muslims, and for that matter, anyone who expressed their opposition to this move towards all-out war, were targeted. In many ways, this was waiting to happen.

Thankfully, the armed forces conducted themselves in a manner that underlined that their aim was to dismantle the infrastructure of terror, and not to act against the Pakistani people or establishment. Therefore, the media briefings by representatives of the armed forces were professional, emphasizing this objective. Obviously, this enraged the peddlers of hate. What also became clear was the ominous silence maintained by the political leadership of the government to these hate-driven actions.

People on both sides of the border were yearning for an end to military engagements. It was clear that those living in forward areas of the country, the common people, were getting hurt. People in Poonch and Rajouri had to bear the brunt. Students, and migrant workers were the biggest casualties. Eventually, the ceasefire was to be enforced before sundown.

It is at this point that the mystery unravelled. Before any official announcement, a tweet by the US President Donald Trump declared that both sides had agreed to a ceasefire mediated by his administration. This put the Indian government in a spot of bother, particularly given the prime minister’s absence from two rounds of all-party meetings. Clearly, the official narrative was not convincing.

Against this backdrop, the collective demand of the opposition to summon a special session of Parliament to discuss this entire development emerged. The government was on the back foot. Narendra Modi, who had started his journey as the prime minister with his familiar flourish of bowing down on the stairs of the Parliament House, paying his obeisance to ‘the temple of democracy’ went silent. We need not go into the record of the last decade to examine this shift. But the imperative of summoning the parliament session stands out. The imperial announcement of Trump punctured Modi’s posturings.

In any case, the government had to act. But despite the support from the opposition, the government was wary of facing the Parliament, and the obvious questions which would be raised and ought to be raised in a functioning democracy.

To avoid potential embarrassment, the prime minister chose to bypass Parliament and instead addressed the nation directly. But the next decisive jolt came from the prime minister’s avowed friend, Donald Trump. He laid bare the sequence of events that led to the ceasefire where both the Indian and the Pakistani governments were forced to accept the severance of military hostilities. These two interventions by Trump exposed the government and its inability to stand up to pressure. The Pakistani establishment was blessed with the quick acceptance of their request for $1 billion loan. With the Pakistani armed forces at the helm of affairs where this money will go is anybody’s guess!

The tragedy is that the options suggested by the opposition – namely, that apart from military action, other avenues such as diplomacy should be explored – were ignored. The outcome of ignoring this advice is now evident to all. India was the only member of the 25-member IMF Executive Board to abstain from voting. Despite the evidence of Pakistan sponsored terrorist act, the granting of the loan was unanimous.

This damning situation was further buttressed by Trump just hours ahead of the prime minister’s national address. There he did not leave anything to imagination, citing how issues of finance and trade were the levers that the US exercised to force the two neighbours to submission.

So there was no reference to the Indian casualties, no demand for the extradition of the perpetrators of the Pahalgam attack, not to speak of the extreme stress faced by common Indian citizens. This has only underlined our pathetic state.

Given that the terrorists were actively attempting to trigger communal polarisation – as candidly admitted by the foreign secretary – it was imperative that the battle against hate become an integral part of the broader fight against terrorism. But alas, the Hindutva brigade’s infrastructure of hate was baying for blood. They were not prepared to accept this outcome and their rage was palpable. On the evening of May 8th, they went on a rampage, with even sections of the mainstream media complicit in peddling pure fiction. This was further amplified by social media hate-mongers on the scale of destruction in Pakistan.

This hurts the interests of the country, bringing down the standing of India in the international community. Therefore, the foreign secretary and the armed forces’ spokespersons had to painstakingly explain that India was a secular country and was a functioning democracy. Therefore, it is not surprising that they targeted the foreign secretary, unable to question the ‘leader’. After Himanshi Narwal, the foreign secretary was exposed to the most obnoxious trolling.

The only way to emerge from this crisis is for the government to come forward with candid explanations. The orchestrated, one-sided exhortations by the prime minister cannot be a substitute for a structured discussion and debate in Parliament. This is the bare minimum standard of accountability in a functioning democracy.

Meanwhile, the unfolding pattern reveals a disturbing new savagery with which US imperialism is reasserting itself in South Asia. This is a situation fraught with grave dangers for the Indian people. Now is the time to redouble our resolve and determination to confront this menace head-on. (IPA Service)

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By P. Sudhir

The 24th Congress of the CPI(M), which concluded at Madurai on April 6 with a massive rally, was notable in many respects. There were changes both in the agenda and content of the Congress discussions.

First of all, a Political Review Report which reviewed the implementation of the political-tactical line adopted at the 23rd Congress was presented along with the Draft Political Resolution for discussion by the delegates. Usually the political review is part of the Political-Organisational Report, which is discussed after the Political Resolution is adopted.

The Political Review Report had gone into some depth on how the political-tactical line was implemented and the strong and weak points of this experience. This enabled the Party units and ranks to understand what are the factors that impeded the growth of the independent strength of the Party. Though the Party membership increased by 33,252 (3.37 per cent) since the 23rd Congress and the membership of all the mass organisations by 64 lakhs, there was no appreciable increase in the independent strength and political influence of the Party. Hence the running thread in both the discussions – on the Draft Political Resolution and the Draft Report on Organisation – was what needs to be done to enhance the strength and mass base of the Party.

The main task set forth in the Political Resolution – the isolation and defeat of the BJP-RSS – is linked to this imperative need to increase the strength of the CPI(M) and the Left. While the CPI(M) will continue to work for and cooperate with all democratic and secular forces to build a broad unity to fight the BJP to defend democracy, secularism and federalism, it will give priority to the political, ideological and organisational work to expand the strength of the Party.

In this connection, the discussions in the Congress and the Political Resolution adopted has given a proper direction on how to wage a continuous struggle against the Hindutva ideology and the communal politics of the BJP-RSS. The Party at all levels will be stepping up the ideological work in the political, cultural and social spheres. The Hindutva-corporate regime is displaying neo-fascist characteristics and this impels the urgency of this struggle.

The other direction given by the political-tactical line is to intensify class and mass struggles, with an emphasis on developing local struggles on a sustained basis. It is these local struggles which will connect the masses to the Party and enable the political consolidation of its influence. The struggle against the rural rich nexus comprising landlords-rich capitalist farmers-contractors and big traders, by the rural poor constitutes the basic class struggle in the countryside.

The Report on Organisation addresses the main theme of increasing the independent strength and mass base of the Party. The major points in this regard are the steps to be taken to improve the quality of Party membership and activising the basic unit – the branch. While some progress has been made in these tasks, much more remains to be done. An important aspect of improving the quality of membership is the induction of more women and youth in the Party. Women constitute 20.2 per cent of the total membership and the next step is to achieve the target of 25 per cent set by the Kolkata Plenum on Organisation.

A crucial factor for the future growth of the Party is the need to attract large numbers of youth to the Party. The Kerala unit of the Party has done a commendable job by having 29 per cent of its total membership being young people of 31 years and below. Both the political resolution and organisational report have called for a youth-oriented political platform and propagating socialism as the real alternative amongst the youth.

The new Central Committee elected by the Congress has thirty new faces out of 85 members. The 20 per cent quota for women in the Committee was also fulfilled with 17 women members elected. An 18-member Polit Bureau and the new General Secretary, M A Baby, were elected by the new Central Committee. This renewed leadership and team can be relied upon to go forth in implementing the political and organisational tasks set out by the Congress.

The 24th Congress was efficiently hosted by the Tamil Nadu state committee and the preparations for the Congress saw enthusiastic participation of Party members at all levels. The Congress instilled a quiet confidence and resolve amongst all delegates that the way has opened to march ahead. (IPA Service)

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By P. Sudhir

As the year 2026 approaches, the issue of the delimitation of parliamentary and assembly constituencies is drawing public attention and controversy. This is the year when the freeze on the number of seats will end, and the next round of delimitation must be undertaken following the first census conducted after 2026. The 42nd Constitutional Amendment, enacted during the Emergency in 1976, initially froze delimitation. Later, under the Vajpayee government, this freeze was extended until 2026.

The delimitation process set out in the Constitution involves two aspects: (i) Revising the number of parliamentary seats in each state based on its population ratio to the national total after each decadal census and also adjusting the number of legislative assembly constituencies in each state accordingly; and (ii) Redrawing the territorial boundaries of parliamentary and legislative assembly constituencies to ensure they are relatively equal and comparable in terms of population.

Because of the Constitutional amendment in 1976 and subsequently the amendment made during the Vajpayee government in 2001, no delimitation commissions were appointed after the 1981, 1991 and 2001 decadal Censuses. Now the issue has come to the fore as the freeze will end in 2026 necessitating delimitation as per the Constitutional provisions. The primary objection to delimitation based on latest population figures is that it would diminish political representation for the southern states in Parliament.

This disparity arises from the varying population growth rates among states. Some states, through effective population control measures, have seen a sharp decline in growth, while others have experienced significant increases. As a result, states that successfully controlled population growth would be penalised, while those that did not would be rewarded with additional seats. Even Punjab, Odisha, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are expected to lose some seats. This is why the southern states, which have led in population control, strongly oppose using population figures as the basis for delimitation.

Even if the total number of seats is increased from the current 543 to 848, as reported in the media, a population based delimitation would give the five southern states together around 40 seats more, while Uttar Pradesh alone would gain 63 seats and Bihar 39 seats. It is this disproportionate distribution, which is being opposed by the southern states.

In response to the objections to the delimitation process based on the latest Census figures, the Union Home Minister, Amit Shah, has stated that no southern state would lose seats, but gain additional seats on a pro-rata status. However, the statement remains ambiguous as it does not clarify whether the pro-rata calculation is based on the current number of seats or the latest population figures. If it is the latter, then the North Indian states still get a disproportionate share of the increased number of seats.

The best method in the present situation would be to adopt a pro-rata seat increase based on the current number of seats each state has. While increasing the total number of seats to ensure better representation for the people, this approach would also ensure that the current proportion of seats among the states would be maintained. Under this method, each state would receive additional seats based on its current allocation rather than population growth.

As an example, if the total number of seats is increased to 800, then Tamil Nadu, which currently holds 39 parliament seats out of the total 543, would get an additional 18 seats making a total of 57, which would be the same proportion of seats to the overall total it has had. By this formula, Kerala would get an additional 9 seats from its current allocation of 20, making it 29. Uttar Pradesh, which has currently 80 seats, would get an additional 38 seats making a total of 118 and Bihar, an addition of 25 seats making a total of 79 seats.

These are all the same proportion of seats that they have currently. So while increasing the total number of seats to ensure better representation, no state will suffer a reduction in the proportion of seats that it holds. However, if a consensus cannot be arrived at on this approach, the only other alternative would be to suspend the delimitation process for another 25 years.

The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, MK Stalin, has convened a meeting on March 22 of the chief ministers of southern states and major political parties from West Bengal, Odisha and Punjab to discuss the issue and to come to a common position. The stand taken by this joint meeting should set the pace for arriving at a solution to the delimitation problem. (IPA Service)

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By P. Sudhir

The US President Donald Trump, in his first address to the US Congress following his election, has threatened to impose tariffs on countries that he considers are taking advantage of US trade policies. In his list is India, along with Canada, Mexico, China, Brazil and the European Union. Trump has repeatedly named India as a country that is levying exorbitant tariffs on US products. He even called India a ‘tariff king’. Trump threatened that from April 2, he would levy ‘reciprocal tariffs’.

The US has imposed an additional 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum products from Canada, along with various goods exported to the US from Mexico and China. These actions have been met with strong opposition from the affected countries, as they violate multiple trade agreements previously concluded with the US, as well as World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. In response, Mexico and China have imposed retaliatory tariffs on US products, and Canada has also announced its intention to do the same. Unlike these countries, the reaction of the Indian government has been rather tame.

The Indian government chose not to respond even after President Trump claimed that India had agreed to “significantly reduce tariffs on American products.” When questioned, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri stated that “tariff liberalisation has been a component of India’s trade agreements.” Stripped of its diplomatic language, this suggests that the government has effectively yielded to US pressure. A glimpse of this capitulation was evident in the Union Budget, which reduced tariffs on Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Bourbon whiskey, electric vehicles, wines, and other products.

Prime Minister Modi was among the few foreign leaders who rushed to greet Trump after his re-election. The BJP and its media allies portrayed this visit as a recognition of Modi’s leadership. However, behind Trump’s flattery lay the hand-wringing that Modi was subjected to. During their joint press conference, Trump continued his criticism of India’s tariffs on US goods, while Modi conveniently opted to remain silent. The Indian government sought solace in the fact that the joint statement mentioned working toward a “comprehensive bilateral trade agreement.” The BJP government thinks that India can escape from US tariffs by negotiating the bilateral trade agreement (BTA).

The true nature of the proposed Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) was revealed during a recent media interaction with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. He stated that India and the US should aim for “something big” in trade, emphasizing that the agreement should not be approached “product by product” but should instead encompass the “whole thing.” To remove any ambiguity, he explicitly stated that the US wants India to “open up its agricultural market.” Through the BTA, the US is not merely seeking tariff concessions; it is demanding broader changes, including reductions in agricultural subsidies, opening government procurement to US companies, amendments to patent laws to benefit US pharmaceutical companies, and unrestricted data flows. It needs to be noted here that Lutnick’s comments were made after his meeting with the Indian Commerce Minister in the US.

Opening up India’s agricultural sector to the US through the BTA and reducing tariffs would have disastrous consequences for the country. Nearly 70 crore of our people depend on agriculture for their livelihood. Allowing US agricultural products into the Indian market through concessions would spell disaster for a large number of our people already grappling with a prolonged agrarian crisis.

Similarly, diluting India’s patent laws would be a killer blow to the domestic industry, particularly the pharmaceutical industry, which produces affordable medicines compared to the exorbitantly priced drugs in the US market. The reduction of tariffs on electric vehicles, is designed to facilitate the entry of Tesla automobiles, produced by Elon Musk, Trump’s trusted lieutenant.

In what is becoming a recurring pattern, the Indian government is increasingly becoming an apologist for the US and its coercive tactics. When the US deported the first batch of Indian illegal migrants in a military plane, shackled and mistreated, the Minister of External Affairs falsely claimed that “women and children” were not subjected to such treatment. He shamefully justified the US actions by stating that handcuffing and shackling were “standard operating procedures.”

Only after widespread public outrage did the government meekly issue a statement through its spokespersons, saying it would bring the matter to the attention of the US administration. There was no strong condemnation or protest registered, as one would expect.

In stark contrast to the BJP government’s submissive stance, smaller countries like Mexico and Colombia have strongly protested when their citizens faced similar mistreatment. Colombia, for instance, sent its own military planes to bring back its citizens and refused entry to US military planes.

On the issue of tariffs, too, the BJP government is acting coy. During a visit to London, the External Affairs Minister inexplicably stated that the US administration’s moves toward multi-polarity suits India’s interests. When questioned about tariffs, he again deflected attention by referencing the proposed Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA).

The statements and actions of BJP ministers make it increasingly clear that they are bending over backward to placate the US. They seem willing to pay any price, even at the cost of sacrificing India’s core interests in sectors like agriculture. The government is working hard to finalise a trade deal that would please Trump before he visits India for the QUAD summit, which India is hosting later this year. In its eagerness to be part of the “shared enterprise of QUAD,” the BJP government is compromising India’s self-reliance and national sovereignty. This should not be allowed under any circumstances.

It is imperative to expose the Modi government’s surrender to US imperialism and mobilise people in large numbers. The future progress and sovereignty of our country are at stake. (IPA Service)

The article Narendra Modi Govt Has Become An Apologist For U.S. On Trump’s Coercive Tariff Hikes appeared first on Arabian Post.

By Arun Srivastava

Saffron ecosystem, especially the BJP leadership always strives to turn a Hindu festival into a political controversy. Every dispute adds to its membership and helps widen its support base. This time too they have succeeded in their move to politicize Maha Kumbh Mela. Notwithstanding stampede and death of large number of pilgrims in this year’s Kumbh Mela, which sullied image of the BJP government of UP and even slayed its political and administrative credibility, the saffron ecosystem has vivified its religious face.

Long ahead of holding of the festival, the saffron ecosystem and its UP and Central governments were busy creating the hype of it being the most propitious occasion for attaining salvation according to the Hindu almanac. It was advertised that the 2025 Maha Kumbh Mela was special because it was the result of a rare alignment of the Sun, Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn. Besides the sacred geography of Prayagraj made this year’s event especially momentous. It is held at the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati rivers and has been recognized as part of Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO.

The saffron strategists marketed the event in a skilful manner to the maximum advantage of the big business and corporate houses and at the same time arouse the religious passion of the Hindus for political gains. The conventional Hindus took their words of being living embodiment of India’s timeless traditions, history, and cultural identity, as gospel truth and rushed to Prayagraj. The saffron ecosystem and its marketing strategists were successful in their mission as crores of spiritual Hindus took dip every day in the Triveni Sangam.

With Hindutva slogan of Narendra Modi losing its charm and relevance, RSS and BJP needed some other issue and occasion to survive and for acceptability. Only last year the RSS publicly confessed that Modi has lost the ability to mobilise religious sentiments for political gains. Naturally deepening economic distress and growing disparities conjured the RSS and BJP to look for some alternate. Losing Lok Sabha election has turned RSS more desperate. LS elections had sent a strong signal that Modi can no longer carry his party’s fortunes on his shoulder single-handedly.

RSS which has been on the mission to remove Modi from power and has been striving hard to build its base in the Dalits and OBCs also planned to use the occasion to reach out to this section. It had taken out nearly 8,000 students of the average age of 10 years from SC communities for “Kumbh Darshan”. It was done with the am to ensure that these students become familiar with Hindu traditions, Indian culture and are prevented from “falling prey” to religious conversions.

UP chief minister with the aim of effective marketing held the cabinet meeting at Kumbh site and took bath with his cabinet ministers January 22. Holding meeting of the state cabinet at the religious site and then taking a ritual bath “for purification of sins” virtually amounted to providing official recognition and patronage to a religious event which otherwise should have been a personal act of devotion.

How commercial interests were intertwined with the religious celebration could be seen in Gautam Adani’s distributing food in a tent and sponsoring one crore copies of a collection of prayer songs. The two stampedes leaves no scope for ambiguity religion is well entrenched in the driving seat. India and Indians will have more thriving pilgrimage centres to promote the commercial interest of the saffron ecosystem and rightist forces. Look at the manner in which the rightist icon Donald Trump has been using politics to promote business. He is even against India giving space to he business interest of his own aide Musk.

True enough it was the political compulsion that forced Yogi and also both the strongmen Modi and Amit Shah to take dip in the holy Triveni. What made them scary was, BJP not losing the seats, but the danger of it losing its credibility and political relevance; the reversal of the process of political ascendency and losing the core base of majority-Hindu voters. The BJP had got 36 seats while the opposition INDIA alliance won 43, including 37 by Samajwadi.

In its hurry to emerge as the new face of Hindutva who had the political capability to represent the aspirations of Hindus and lead the party, UP chief minister, Yogi Adityanath forgot to adhere to the basic security measures and ethos. This has been exposed by the CPCB which in its report had said that faecal coliform and biochemical oxygen demand levels did not meet the bathing criteria during monitoring carried out in the second week of January.

A bench of NGT chairperson Justice Prakash Shrivastava, judicial member Sudhir Agarwal, and expert member A Senthi Vel were hearing the matter on the compliance of a December order, wherein it had directed the UP government and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to ensure that water quality in rivers Ganga and Yamuna was fit to drink and bathe in during the Kumbh. It pulled up the UP Pollution Control Board of not filing an action taken report in compliance with its December 23 order.

The CPCB report on water quality in the Ganga at Kumbh had said, “River water quality was not conforming with the primary water quality for bathing with respect to faecal coliform at all the monitored locations on various occasions. A huge number of people (are) taking a bath at Prayagraj during Maha Kumbh Mela in the river, including auspicious bathing days, which eventually leads to an increase in faecal concentration.”

This CPCB report exposed the utter contempt of the RSS and BJP leadership towards the religious beliefs and commitment of Hindus and simply treats them as a tool to win the elections and come to the power. The UPPCB even tried to get exonerated of the crime by saying that it had filed a compliance report. It even tried to say that the CPCB was lying by seeking to know the exact locations from where they collected water samples. This prompted the bench to ask whether they were disputing the CPCB’s report.

Realising the intensity of erosion of credibility and image from this revelation, Yogi has launched counter diatribe against the expose. Nevertheless it ought to be mentioned that a day after being reprimanded by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) for delay in submitting action taken report on maintaining water quality in Prayagraj for the Mahakumbh, the UP Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) tendered unconditional apology on Tuesday along with the report.

Yogi countering the NGT version told the state assembly only yesterday that the UPPCB has been continuously monitoring the water quality at the Sangam and it is fit for both bathing and ritual drinking (aachman). He held; “This time, 81 drains have been tapped, treating 261 MLD (million litres per day) of sewage. In January and February, faecal coliform levels at the Sangam nose were found to be within the acceptable range, below 2,500 MPN per 100 ml, according to the UP Pollution (Control) Board”. He said the Maha Kumbh 2025 is being organised in a “grand” manner, while the 2013 edition suffered due to the “corruption, mismanagement”, administrative negligence and chaos of the SP rule. For the 2025 event, 14 flyovers, nine permanent ghats, and seven riverfronts have been prepared. The length of temporary ghats has increased from just 4 km in 2013 to 12 km in 2025, he added.

The Kumbh Mela was being used by RSS and BJP as an opportunity for outreach, especially to build ties with sections of society which did not vote for the BJP. Undeniably this has been a very disturbing convergence of state and religion. The worst has been their blatant attempt to hide the actual number of devout Hindus who died in the stampede. It appears speaking lies and falsehood are the basic traits of the saffron ecosystem. Not only Modi or Mohan Bhagwat were accused of speaking lies. The stampede has also made bare the fact that Yogi is not far behind these leaders in speaking lies. If his claim that adequate police arrangements were in place at the Kumbh, this nature of stampede certainly would not have happened. (IPA Service)

The article BJP Leadership Is Set To Use Maha Kumbh Festival For Electoral Gains In 2027 Polls appeared first on Arabian Post.

By P. Sudhir

The BJP has won the Delhi assembly election with a tally of 48 seats, polling 45.6 per cent of the vote. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won 22 seats getting 43.6 per cent of the vote. The difference between the two was only 2 per cent but it translated into 40 seats more over only 8 seats received by the BJP in 2020 assembly polls.

The Delhi assembly election results are being viewed and analysed from varying standpoints. There is no doubt that the BJP winning Delhi after 27 long years has given a boost to the party and to the Modi government. At the same time, the defeat of the AAP after ten years in office is being interpreted in a particular way. The predominant view put out by the corporate media and the pro-establishment commentators is that the AAP has been punished by the electorate for its sins of commission and omission.

It is said that the AAP, which had its origin in the ‘India against Corruption’ movement, has now been tarnished with corruption charges and the image of its leader, Arvind Kejriwal, has been tainted. The other popular refrain is that the AAP had, in its first full term in office, delivered on various promises for the welfare of the poorer sections – free electricity upto 200 units per household; free water supply and setting up of mohalla clinics and upgrading of government schools. But in the second term, the AAP government failed to perform, except for introducing free bus rides for women. The tussle between the Lt. Governor and the AAP government is also attributed to be one of the causes but the tendency is to put the blame on both the parties.

So it is concluded that the mounting anti-incumbency has resulted in the electoral setback for the AAP and the BJP with the assurance of the Modi guarantees and a double-engine government has earned the people’s mandate.

It is true that in the second term of the AAP government (2020-25), it has not been able to fulfil some of its key pledges. There is discontent, particularly among the middle classes, about deteriorating infrastructure – roads, sewerage, garbage disposal and water supply. The AAP has become a casualty of its non-ideological approach, which was made into its signature style. The aggressive Hindutva politics of the BJP and RSS was sought to be nullified by a consistent appeal to Hindu religious symbolism and sentiments. The AAP leadership studiously refrained from taking a consistent stand in support of the Muslim minorities, who had come under attack. The AAP government became increasingly inaccessible and grievances of different sections of the people including workers, teachers and students went unheard.

Finally, the image of the AAP as a clean and non-corrupt party got dented, not so much, by the Modi government’s fabrication of false cases, but by the costly renovation of the chief minister’s residence. The `Sheesh Mahal’ campaign of the BJP had some resonance with a section of the voters.

Having acknowledged all these, still the main factor in the electoral outcome – the Modi government and the BJP’s single-minded assault on the AAP government and its leadership – is being underplayed or ignored. What has happened in the National Capital Territory of Delhi is unprecedented in the annuls of independent India.

There was a veritable capture of the state government by the centre by resorting to unconstitutional means. The Delhi government, as per the Act passed in 1991, had its powers limited with police, law and order and land brought under the purview of the central government, through the Lt. Governor. But unable to defeat the AAP in the 2020 elections, the Modi government embarked upon a diabolical plan to take away control of the administrative services from the Delhi government and ministry.

The Lt. Governor started exercising the powers of appointment and transfer of officials. The bureaucracy stopped listening to ministers and instead awaited the directives of the Lt. Governor. The Delhi government went to the Supreme Court against this order. In May 2023, the Supreme Court in a judgement overrode the Lt. Governor’s powers and held that the Delhi government had control over the administrative services except in the portfolios of public order, police and land. The union home minister could not accept this verdict and immediately an ordinance was brought vesting the services under the jurisdiction of the Lt. Governor. This was subsequently incorporated as an amendment to the Government of NCT of Delhi Act.

During this entire period, a spectacle unfolded wherein the bureaucrats not only would not listen to the ministers, but often worked against the direction given by the ministers. The Lt. Governor and the senior bureaucrats connived in framing charges against the ministers. On top of this were the arrests of a senior minister, the deputy chief minister and finally the chief minister, who were all sent to jail. Many essential supplies like water became a casualty of the centre’s usurpation of powers. For instance, the Delhi Assembly had passed Rs 3,000 crores for the Delhi Jal Board in the budget allocation in February 2024. This was a budgeted provision passed as legislation by the Assembly. Yet the finance secretary stopped these funds from going to the Jal Board. The Delhi government had to go to the Supreme Court for relief in the matter.

So the paralysis of government and sabotage by the senior civil servants became the AAP government’s liability. It is this very crime committed by the Modi government, which has now been encashed by it, while the AAP has paid the price for non-performance.

One would have thought that this electoral battle in Delhi would have been a rallying call for all secular opposition parties to come together to defeat the BJP for its nefarious onslaught on democracy and federalism. This did not happen, neither could AAP carry this campaign powerfully among the people.

The stance of the Congress in these elections is being rightly criticised by other parties of the INDIA bloc. The Congress election campaign was focussed more on defeating AAP and branding its leader, Kejriwal, as a corrupt person. Rahul Gandhi himself set the tone for this campaign. Further the Congress party, which had garnered only 4.26 per cent in the last assembly elections should not have fought all 70 seats in the assembly, when there could not be any understanding with the AAP. While the main reason for AAP’s defeat is the big swing away from it, it is also a fact that in 13 seats where the AAP lost, the Congress polled more votes than the margin of defeat. AAP leaders – Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Saurabh Bharadwaj – all lost with a margin of votes less than what the Congress polled.

Though the results are a disappointment for the secular-democratic opposition, the fact remains that nearly 44 per cent of the electorate voted for AAP, the bulk of them being poorer sections and women. (IPA Service)

The article Centre Dominated Administration Played A Big Role In Defeating AAP In Delhi Polls appeared first on Arabian Post.

By P. Sudhir

The year 2024, which has ended, has been a tumultuous one both nationally and internationally. In India, the year began with the State-sponsored installation of the idol at the newly-built but incomplete Ram temple at Ayodhya, a signal from the BJP rulers that the era of Hindutva raj has begun. This was followed by various attacks on opposition leaders through the central agencies, including the arrest of two chief ministers.

The stage was set for the pivotal 18th Lok Sabha election, where the lines were drawn between the BJP-RSS and their camp followers and, on the other side, the INDIA bloc of parties. The results were a setback for the BJP, after claiming that there will be 400 plus, they ended up below the majority mark with 240 seats.

The political situation, with the advent of the third term of Narendra Modi, can be summed up as follows: The Modi government is determined to go ahead with the Hindutva-corporate agenda; the continuing pursuit of neoliberal policies is inflicting more burdens on the people – whether it be price rise, unemployment and continuing distress for the rural and urban poor; with the strengthened opposition, the space had opened up for stronger and wider resistance to the Hindutva-authoritarian forces.

A weakened BJP in Parliament does not mean a less dangerous government exercising power. The drive to capture State institutions and inscribe the Hindutva ideology in all spheres – educational, social and cultural – continues. Among the people and society, insidious Muslim-baiting to create a permanent communal divide carries on relentlessly. The demand to survey and identifying temples beneath mosques in Sambhal and Ajmer Sharif is part of this game-plan. This is a threat, which must be met with greater resolve and an ideological struggle by the Left-democratic forces.

2024 was the year which saw the furthering of the communal-corporate nexus. The favourite big capitalists of the Modi regime accumulated much wealth and reaped greater profits. Five of these big corporates – Ambani, Adani, Tata, Birla and Bharti Mittal – own 20 per cent of the total assets of the non-financial corporate sector. The third term of the Modi government has seen a renewed push for privatisation. In the electricity distribution sector, discoms are being privatised. This is leading to big struggles as in Chandigarh, where a profitable discom of the union territory is sought to be sold off. Other profitable PSUs like the Ferro Scrap Nigam Ltd is in the cross-hairs.

These policies and their impact on people’s lives have not gone unchallenged. The year saw numerous struggles of different sections of the working people. The most widespread has been the strikes and struggles of scheme workers – anganwadi, ASHA and mid-day meal workers. The longer struggle against privatisation of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant continues. There have been sectoral strikes of electricity workers, coal workers, postal, bank and insurance employees. The most significant workers’ strike was the 37-day strike by the workers of Samsung India, at its plant in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu. The workers conducted a successful struggle for their right to form a union and get recognition from this multinational giant.

There have been big actions organised jointly by the Central Trade Unions (CTUs) and the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM). There have been countrywide protests against increasing crimes and violence against women. Youth have been coming out in large numbers in certain states protesting against the faulty system of competitive examinations and leakage of question papers. Students have been conducting struggles against fee hikes and the National Education Policy. The new year will usher in many more struggles and sites of resistance.

Internationally, the year 2024 will be remembered first and foremost for the worst genocidal war of the 21st century – Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The brutal attack, which began in October 2023, continued throughout 2024. As the new year begins, there is no respite. The extermination of the people of Gaza is being conducted through air strikes, drone attacks and artillery shellings targeting civilians. Hospitals and schools are deliberately targeted. Starvation has become a weapon for genocide with food supplies into Gaza being stopped. There is despair worldwide at the failure to intervene and stop the US-backed Israeli aggression, but this is accompanied by admiration and solidarity for the Palestinian people, who have displayed incredible courage and resilience in the face of this awful carnage.

The advance of the far-right in Europe in 2024 marked the culmination of the social-democratic centre’s shift to the right after embracing neoliberal policies. In the absence of a viable Left force in these countries, the opposition space is being occupied by the far-right. But where the Left is able to project an effective alternative, it came into contention against the far-right. In France, the Left alliance – New Popular Front – was able to emerge as the largest bloc in the Parliament election, checking the advance of the far-right. In Belgium, the Workers Party made significant gains in the European, national and local elections in the past year.

In India too, the potential of the Left has to unfold in the coming days. The new year should see the emergence of a united and effective Left force, which can rally all the democratic forces. This will strengthen the fight being put up by the secular-democratic forces to defeat the Hindutva-corporate regime. (IPA Service)

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By P. Sudhir

The rapid advance of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other armed factions led to the fall of Bashar al- Assad’s government in Syria. With this, the US has succeeded in toppling the last of the secular regimes in West Asia. US military interventions resulted not only in the fall of secular regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria in the West Asia-North African region, but also created deep sectarian fissures in the region. The destruction unleashed by the US and the Frankenstein religious fundamentalist/extremist groups it helped create, is threatening peace and stability everywhere.

Syria was divided into three zones after the civil war, which started in 2011. Assad’s government was in control of only 65 per cent of the land. It was supported by Russia and Iran, which helped the government control the land and also repel attacks from militant groups.

The second zone of 25 per cent land is controlled by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with the backing of the US. The rest of the region, particularly the North-Western regions are controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is an off-shoot of the al-Qaeda and al-Nusra front. HTS declared itself as a separate entity in 2016 and has emerged as a dominant militant group. It is based in Idlib. Though declared a terrorist organisation by US, Russia and Turkey, it enjoyed covert backing from countries that were against Assad.

Basing itself in Idlib, the HTS actively worked to regroup its forces in the past one year and launched the attack. Its attack received a fillip from a parallel attack that was led by another militant group, the Syrian National Army (SNA) backed by Turkey, which is based in the areas north of Aleppo.

Iran and Russia, two main supporters of the Syrian government are bogged down by the conflicts in their neighbourhoods. Hezbollah, which played an important role in defence of the Syrian government is involved in the war against Israeli aggression. All these factors led to weakening of support to the Syrian government, which was already in a crisis.

Assad was not a popular president. He had initiated neoliberal economic policies that created discontent among the people. The government tried to suppress protests against such policies by using force. It curtailed all forms of democratic rights and imposed an authoritarian rule. Imperialist forces led by the US utilised this discontent to destabilise the regime. They used fundamentalist/extremist organisations like al-Qaeda and its regional associate al-Nusra to conduct militant attacks that led to the civil war. Israel, a major imperialist ally in the region, too played a role in creating disturbances.

Thousands of people lost their lives, many more were injured in the civil war. More than 6 million Syrians became refugees and were forced to flee the country. The economic loss suffered due to destruction ran into several billions. Even after the decade long civil war lost its intensity, Syrian government could not address peoples’ sufferings.

In the last one year, Israel has continuously bombed territories within Syria, in the name of cutting down arms supply to Hezbollah and eliminating its threat. Syria could neither resist nor counter such attacks. Soldiers in the Syrian armed forces were affected by the all round crises and were not ready to resist.

The Syrian government lost the confidence of its people as a result of its authoritarian character. This was its major weakness. It was because of these reasons that when the militant groups launched their offensive, whatever remained of the Syrian armed forces just melted away without offering any resistance. President Assad too fled the country and sought asylum in Russia.

Immediately after the fall of Assad, Israel intensified its attacks on Syria. Israel has carried out more that 480 aerial strikes in 48-hours (between December 10-11), which is more than what it had carried out in the past one year. Israel is claiming that the intensity with which it is attacking is an attempt to ensure that Syrian arms and ammunition does not fall into militants’ hands.

Israel has occupied the buffer zone between Syria and Israel near the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. It has officially declared that its defence forces have even ‘crossed the buffer zone’ into Syrian territories. This is Israel’s yet another brazen violation of UN resolutions. The far-right Zionists are begging for the occupation of as much territory as possible for the establishment of ‘Greater Israel’.

On the other hand, Turkey too is keen to establish its control and realise its regional ambitions. It is supporting the SNA to carry out attacks on Kurds and occupy their lands. It wants to eliminate the threat emanating from the Kurds’ demand for an autonomous Kurdistan. Media reports that the fighting between Turkish-backed and Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria has killed more than two hundred people in just three days.

People of various sects like Sunnis, Shias, Kurds, Alwaites, Druze and Christians live in Syria. In the coming days, sectarian strife is bound to increase because of the conflicting interests of the powers backing competing militant groups. There is every chance that the situation will deteriorate into another internal civil war, which would be detrimental to the people of Syria, who are harbouring high hopes after the fall of Assad’s government.

The militant groups announced the formation of an interim government with Mohammed al-Bashir, as the prime minister till March 1, 2025. He urged the people to remain united and promised to govern accordingly. Given the experiences of countries or regions governed by militant groups like the HTS, we can hardly expect them to live by such promises.

The future of Syria should be decided by the people of Syria, without any external influence, intervention or threat. Imperialism and Zionism should not be allowed to use Syria as a theatre to pursue its great power ambitions. (IPA Service)

The article Israel Should Not Be Allowed To Use Syria As A Theatre For Its Power Game appeared first on Arabian Post.

By P. Sudhir

The results of the Jammu and Kashmir assembly elections are of great significance. The victory of the National Conference-led alliance, winning 49 of the 90 seats, is a strong verdict against the Modi government and the BJP’s authoritarian steps to dismantle the state of J&K and deprive it of its special status. The people of the Valley have also foiled the BJP’s campaign to field proxies and encourage separatist elements to contest to divide the vote. The fact that the BJP could poll only 2.2 per cent of the votes cast in the Valley shows the total rejection of the Hindutva forces’ game-plan to destroy the identity of the Kashmiri people.

At the same time, the success of the BJP in Jammu, by winning 29 seats (three more than last time) and the record of the Congress of winning only one seat in the region shows that the communal divide between Jammu and the Valley has deepened. This will be a big challenge for the new government on how to represent and accommodate the interests of the Jammu region.

The government headed by Omar Abdullah will have to work under severe constraints. This is a government and a legislative assembly of a union territory. The Lt. Governor is going to have overriding powers, which have been reinforced by amendments to the rules under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act. The J&K government will be faced with the same situation as the Delhi government. The formation of the government must be seen as a first step in the struggle for immediate statehood of J&K. Only the restoration of a full-fledged state would pave the way for an end to central control through the Lt. Governor.

The BJP’s success in Haryana was unexpected. It was widely perceived that the Congress had an edge in these elections and all the exit polls forecast a Congress victory. However, the BJP has been able to get a majority with 48 seats, compared to the 37 seats won by the Congress. The vote share of the BJP is 39.9 per cent, while that of the Congress and its supporters is 39.3 per cent, which is only a difference of 0.6 per cent. The failure of the Congress to stitch up seat adjustments with AAP and Samajwadi party is relevant in this context as the AAP polled 1.8 per cent. The BJP seems to have been able to maintain its non-Jat coalition of caste support. The Congress party was unable to broaden its appeal due to the leadership of Bhupinder Singh Hooda reinforcing the Jat image. The Congress party also suffered due to factional groupism. A less noted feature has been the systematic communal campaigning by the BJP and the RSS targeting the minorities, which went more or less, unanswered or countered by the Congress.

The victory of the BJP in Haryana will, no doubt, embolden the Hindutva forces. The CPI(M) had warned after the Lok Sabha polls that, though the BJP had suffered a setback having failed to get a majority, there should be no underestimation of the strength of the BJP in terms of the Hindutva-bloc of voters that it had consolidated. The Haryana election results should strengthen the resolve of the Left, democratic and secular forces to wage a continuous struggle against the BJP-RSS ideology and politics. (IPA Service)

The article Results of Two Assembly Polls Underline Need For Consistent Fight By INDIA Bloc Against BJP appeared first on Arabian Post.

By P. Sudhir

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, leader of the Janata Vimukti Perumana (JVP) and the National Peoples’ Power (an alliance of Left and progressive parties) won the presidential elections held on September 21 in Sri Lanka. He polled 57,40,179 votes (42.3 per cent) in these elections, which is a significant increase from the 4,18,553 votes (3.16 per cent) he could obtain in 2019. This is a historic victory, as, for the first time, a Left leader won the presidency in Sri Lanka.

The surge in the support and the victory of Dissanayake is a direct result of his party’s involvement in the massive popular struggle, Aragalaya that shook the country in 2022. People were fed up with institutionalised political corruption and scarcity of essential commodities like fuel and gas. They came out in protest against the then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa led government. Disastrous economic policies implemented since the last seven decades led to farmers’ distress, rising inflation, unemployment and falling living standards. The pent up anger burst through these protests. President Rajapaksa was forced to resign and flee. In an attempt to keep the office of power between the two main ruling class parties, Ranil Wickremesinghe, completely dependent on the support of the Rajapaksas’ was sworn in.

Wickremesinghe failed to salvage the situation as he was not willing to address the systemic issues that confronted the country. He negotiated a loan with the IMF, accepting many of its stringent conditions. He failed to tackle the menace of corruption. Instead of resolving the situation, his policies further burdened people. Inequalities increased with the richest 20 per cent of the country owning about a half of the country’s income, while the share of the lowest 20 per cent is only about 5 per cent. People were thoroughly unhappy as the government tried to suppress any dissent against its failures by using force. It had passed laws such as the Online Safety Act and the Anti-terrorism Act, which curtailed democratic rights and freedom.

Presidential elections were held in this background. Election campaign of all the parties revolved around how to revive the economy. The campaign of the NPP and Dissanayake was able to capture popular imagination because they addressed the main issues confronting the people. The election manifesto of Dissanayake prioritised reforming the economy. It also promised to bring about policy changes to promote equality by addressing the burgeoning inequalities, ensure that all citizens have access to basic services and opportunities. This includes reforming the education system and healthcare by correcting their structural limitations.

The manifesto also emphasised on the welfare and governmental support for the upliftment of the marginalised and disadvantaged communities. It talked about the issues affecting the linguistic and religious minorities and promised to address them. Tamils have been demanding devolution of power and reconciliation since the end of the civil war in 2009. Successive governments have failed to keep their promise on both counts, leading to a sense of unease among the minorities. NPP has promised that provincial elections will be held immediately (last held a decade back, in 2013) and that a new constitution would address their concerns.

In the political sphere, Dissanayake promised to immediately act to abolish executive presidency, which was in vogue since 1978. He also vouched for the immediate dissolution of the parliament and elections for a new parliament. He promised to ‘radically root out the culture of corruption and racism’; bring reforms to ensure accountability and end the culture of impunity plaguing the system. These promises won peoples’ approval.

The 2022 struggle exposed the limitations of the two major ruling parties and people were fed up with them. They felt that traditional political parties could no longer be trusted to bring them out of the economic and political malaise. They were looking for an alternative and the JVP/NPP emerged as that alternative. The fact that they were actively involved in the struggle and also enjoyed a reputation of being clean and honest in politics, helped them.

Now after the electoral victory, huge challenges await Dissanayake and his alliance. An immediate concern for him would be to tackle the IMF loan. He had promised to renegotiate the terms and conditions and ensure that peoples’ welfare would not be compromised. Related with this is the issue of various international treaties and reworking the relations with various countries, particularly immediate neighbours and countries in the region. Given the strategic location of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean and the US efforts to patrol these waters, this would be a challenging task. Asserting its independent foreign policy and strengthening multipolarity by playing its due role as a member of SAARC and NAM would be in the best interests of the people.

Another major challenge would be the government’s approach towards the minorities. The fact of the matter is that Dissanayake has won only a minority of the Tamil vote. This shows lurking apprehensions about his party’s approach towards the minorities, particularly Tamils. War and economic backwardness have alienated large sections of the minorities and Dissanayake has a responsibility to heal these wounds. How to devolve powers to the Tamil speaking areas of the North and East is the question.

People have voted for Dissanayake and the NPP yearning for a change, trusting their honesty and the freshness they have brought into the campaign. Now it is the turn of the victors to live up to their promises and meet peoples’ aspirations. We wish Dissanayake and the JVP all the very best and sincerely hope that they bring about the promised change and strengthen the Left.

Dissanayake’s victory goes a long way in bringing back the belief that electoral victories against ruling class parties can be achieved only through participation and leading struggles. (IPA Service)

The article Anura Dissanayake’s Election As President Of Sri Lanka Promises Positive For South Asia appeared first on Arabian Post.

By P. Sudhir

It is sixteen months since the ethnic conflict erupted in Manipur. Over 250 people have been killed and many more injured during the violence and 60,000 people remained displaced and living as refugees.

The central government and the BJP state government have abjectly failed to address the basic issues, which led to the conflict and allowed the situation to develop where there has been a hardening of the ethnic divide. There are nearly 60,000 central police forces deployed mainly to create a buffer zone between the Kuki-dominated hill areas and the valley where Meiteis dominate.

There has been a significant deterioration in the situation in the last fortnight. On September 1, two persons were killed and nine injured in a drone attack in Koutruk in Imphal West district, which is Meitei-dominated. It is believed that some Kuki militants were behind this attack, as also a rocket attack in another area. On September 6, five people were killed in Jiribam district, including three armed militants. Two days later, a retired army personnel of Kuki origin was beaten to death when he crossed the buffer zone to a Meitei area in Imphal West. The reality is that one community cannot enter into the other’s territory.

This latest eruption of violence has led to large-scale protests by students in Imphal and other districts. The students are demanding the removal of the security advisor and the director general of police. They want the Suspension of Operation (SoO) agreement with Kuki militants annulled and transfer of the Unified Command control to the state government. The clashes with the police have led to the imposition of curfew in Imphal East and Imphal West districts and a ban on internet and mobile data services.

The failure to deal with the political issues through negotiations and dialogue with both sides has led to an undue reliance on the security forces to maintain law and order and a divided peace. This has placed the central police forces, particularly the Assam Rifles, in an unenviable position. With the Meitei politicians and groups demanding the withdrawal of the Assam Rifles and other central forces, the use of drones and rockets by Kuki militants has heightened fears that external forces are getting involved in the conflict which will affect national security. The demand for scrapping the Suspension of Operation agreement with the Kuki militant groups, which is also demanded by chief minister, N Biren Singh, will open the way for a renewed insurgency in the hill areas which can lead to the army having to be deployed to combat the insurgency.

What began with the demand of ST status for the Meitei community and the backslash from the Kuki-Zo community was exacerbated by the partisan role of chief minister Biren Singh, who is patronising certain extremist Meitei organisations. Recently, there was an expose of an audio file, which was submitted to the judicial commission enquiring into the riots. The audio file shows the chief minister at his official residence making remarks which are partisan and talks how he has shielded those who looted thousands of arms from the state police armoury. It is Biren Singh’s refusal to adopt an impartial approach as chief minister, which is the root cause for the problem.

The Modi government and the central BJP leadership, despite knowing fully well the divisive role of the chief minister, has chosen to stick with him. At the political level, the BJP and the RSS prefer to stoke the flames of Meitei extremist chauvinism as seen by the fact that the founder of the extremist outfit Arambai Tenggol, L Sanajaoba, was made a Rajya Sabha MP. The long impasse has only strengthened the hands of extremists in both communities.

The abandonment of the centre’s responsibility towards Manipur is made all the more stark by the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not thought it fit to visit Manipur even once in the past sixteen months. What is required is for central government to directly intervene and start the process of political negotiations with major ethnic groups and to create conditions for peace and normalcy, where the rights of citizens of all communities are safeguarded. If the festering sore in Manipur is not excised, it will have wide ranging repercussions for the North-East. (IPA Service)

The article Narendra Modi Govt Has Abdicated Its Responsibility For Ruling Manipur appeared first on Arabian Post.

By P. Sudhir

The situation in Assam has steadily deteriorated due to growing tensions between communities and certain incidents being used to divide people on communal and chauvinistic lines. The chief minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, and the BJP-led government are solely responsible for the current state of affairs.

Himanta Biswa Sarma has crossed all limits in his Muslim baiting campaign and his divisive rhetoric of ‘indigenous versus outsiders’. Not a day passes without Sarma making some wild allegations against people belonging to the religious minority community whom he calls as ‘outsiders’.

His deliberate resort to divisive politics and incendiary speeches have incited sections of the people to create an atmosphere of violence and targeting of minorities. This is evident in the way two cases of sexual assault were handled. The assault of a seventeen year-old girl by two persons belonging to the Marwari business community in Sivasagar town flared up with certain outfits issuing a threat against ‘outsiders’. Instead of demanding firm action against the culprits involved, the entire Marwari community was blamed for this crime. It turned into a major protest against non-Assamese businessmen in upper Assam and ended with representatives of the community being forced to kneel and apologise in Sivasagar town in the presence of a state cabinet minister and the superintendent of police.

Another more serious incident that took place was of the gang rape of a fourteen year-old minor girl by three alleged Muslim youths in Nagaon district. The outrage against the incident was turned against Muslims of East Bengal origin who are derogatorily termed as ‘Miyas’. Some organisations backed by RSS and BJP issued threats and intimidation to ‘Miyas’ asking them to leave upper Assam. After an incident of construction workers of the ‘Miya’ community being mercilessly beaten up, thousands of Bengali-speaking Muslims had to flee from upper Assam districts.

The chief minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, stated in the assembly that he would take sides and would not let ‘Miya’ Muslims “take over Assam”. The chief minister Sarma has gone into a full-scale Muslim baiting campaign in order to cover-up the failure of his government on all fronts. It has miserably failed to protect women in the state with horrific incidents of rape and violence steadily mounting. The demand for granting ST status to six backward communities remains unresolved. The demand for preservation and distribution of land to landless people residing in Assam for decades since March 1971 is totally neglected. The government has done precious little to address the alarming problems of floods and erosion; the figures of unemployment are steadily rising.

It is in this background that Sarma and the BJP government have launched a brazen communal campaign. Although the spate of crimes, including the crimes against women, were committed by people belonging to almost all communities, only the Muslims are being dubbed as criminals. Even the term ‘flood jihad’ was coined by Himanta Sarma to cover-up the problems of artificial flooding in the capital city of Guwahati.

Himanta Sarma has transgressed all constitutional norms while holding the constitutional position of chief minister. He has brazenly violated the oath of office he had taken as chief minister – “That I will do right to all manner of people in accordance with the Constitution and the law without fear of favour, affection or ill-will”. The chief minister’s utterances, both outside and inside the assembly, have been in violation of this oath of office. He has set a disgraceful record by trampling upon political and constitutional morality.

That is why eighteen opposition parties have submitted a memorandum to the president of India on August 29, through the office of the Assam governor, asking her to dismiss chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for promoting communal hatred and violation of constitutional norms.

If there is a fit case, to act against a chief minister for gross violation of the constitution and the oath of office he has taken, this is such a case. (IPA Service)

The article Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma Has Crossed All Limits Of Muslim Bashing appeared first on Arabian Post.

By P Sudhir

The latest revelations by the US based firm Hindenburg Research have raised serious questions about the role of SEBI chief Madhabi Puri Buch as chief of the regulatory body investigating the Adani group’s various contraventions of the law and manipulation of stock prices.

According to the Hindenburg report, the SEBI chairperson Buch had invested funds in 2015 in an offshore fund, “Global Dynamic Opportunities Fund”.  Her investment in the fund was transferred to her husband in 2017 before Buch joined as a whole time member of SEBI.  In 2018, the investment was redeemed through an email sent by Buch herself, even though it was her spouse who was operating the fund.

Citing a whistleblower’s statement, Hindenburg has established that Buch had invested in an offshore entity, which was part of the same Bermuda-Mauritius fund structure used by Vinod Adani, the brother of Gautam Adani, who was already under SEBI’s investigation.

It may be recalled that Hindenburg had released in January 2023, an explosive report which accused the Adani group of “brazen stock manipulation and an accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades”.  The forensic analysis amply documented the way the Adani group used a maze of offshore funds to roundtrip their own funds to invest in Adani companies.

The Supreme Court in March 2023 had set up a six-member expert committee to investigate if there was regulatory failure in dealing with the alleged contravention of law by the Adani group of companies. The court further asked SEBI to specifically investigate if there was any violation of various public shareholding norms in public limited companies or failure to disclose transactions with related parties or any manipulation of stock prices by the Adani group.

In May 2023, the expert committee informed the Court that the “SEBI had drawn a blank” in its investigation into alleged violations in money flows from offshore entities into Adani companies. It must be noted that prior to this SEBI had already been looking into various allegations against the Adani group of companies.

The failure of SEBI to make any substantive progress in unravelling the use of offshore entities for roundtripping and stock manipulation by the Adani companies becomes suspicious and questionable in the light of the latest Hindenburg revelations that chairperson Buch had invested in an offshore entity which has involved with Vinod Adani.

The responses of chairperson Buch and SEBI have been to dismiss the charges levelled in the Hindenburg report as “inappropriate” and “character assassination”. Buch, in a statement, claims that the investment was made because of her husband’s childhood friend, Anil Ahuja, who had set-up the fund. It is not mentioned that he became a director in Adani’s company. Though SEBI says disclosures were made of investments and stakes in companies at the appropriate time and also that recusal had been done when required, the SEBI’s response does not make it clear whether she made a full disclosure of the fund linked to Adani.  There is also no specific answer as to whether she had recused herself from the Adani investigation.

There is no information to show that Buch had disclosed her involvement in the offshore fund to the Supreme Court or to the six-member expert committee which was set-up by the court in March 2023.

The SEBI informed the Supreme Court in January 2024 that it had finished the probe of 20 of the 22 allegations against the Adani group and was told to complete the probe on the other two within three months.  In May 2024, the SEBI informed that one more matter had been completed and only one issue was left.

The fact that SEBI has not come up with any adverse findings against the Adani group and the fact that Buch, as chairperson, had two meetings with Gautam Adani while the investigations were on, gives credence to the serious charges against her in the Hindenburg report.

The issue is of the personal integrity of the SEBI chief and whether she has maintained the high standards of probity expected from the head of an independent regulatory authority.  On both these counts, Madhabi Buch needs to step down from her position immediately.

The BJP and the Modi government are trying to counter the serious charges against the SEBI chief by alleging that the Congress party and the opposition are in league with foreign entities to destabilise the Indian stock markets and the economy.  Such a wild and preposterous defence of the serious failings of the SEBI chief will not reassure small investors or the public.

The Buch affair shows how regulatory bodies can be open to capture by big finance and big business in a neo-liberal regime.

It would be better, in the light of the new evidence, for the Supreme Court to order a court-monitored probe into the Adani group’s brazen flouting of the law and manipulation of stock market prices.  Otherwise, a joint parliamentary committee to look into the whole affair is the only option.

(IPA Service)

The article JPC to Probe Adani Group’s Market Manipulations Inevitable appeared first on Arabian Post.

By P. Sudhir

The mass revolt against the authoritarian government of Sheikh Hasina Wazed has had a dramatic outcome with the fall of the government and Sheikh Hasina fleeing the country. On Monday (August 5), the `March to Dhaka’ called by the student protestors saw tens of thousands of people reaching the city and marching to the prime minister’s residence. The army chief informing Hasina that the army would not fire on civilian protestors was the final blow to a tottering regime.

The popular upheaval had begun as a student movement against the 30 per cent quota in government jobs reserved for descendants of freedom fighters. The Hasina government, instead of engaging with the students, resorted to heavy-handed tactics to suppress the protests. By the time the Supreme Court intervened and reduced the quota to only 5 per cent, nearly 200 students and civilians had been killed in police firings and attacks by goons of the ruling party. The movement revived after a short lull with renewed demands for punishing those responsible for the killings, release of all arrested persons and accountability. This soon metamorphosed into the demand for the resignation of Prime Minister Hasina.

Since the Hasina-led Awami League came back to power in the 2009 parliament election, her fifteen-year rule saw a progressive march to authoritarian rule. Three parliament elections, including the January 2024, were held one-sidedly to favour the ruling Awami League. There was large-scale suppression of opposition parties and State institutions worked openly for the ruling party. What evolved was an iron-clad authoritarian regime, in which the media, civil society and all dissent faced repression and the prospects of arrests and jail.

Bangladesh did make economic progress during the first decade of her rule. The GDP grew, fuelled by a garments exports led growth. But the fruits of this development were cornered by a thin strata, many of whom became fixtures in the Awami League and the inner-circle of Hasina. To the extent that in 2019, it was estimated that Bangladesh would see the third quickest growth in the next five years of the number of high-net-worth (HNW) individuals in the world. This should be contrasted with the fact that at present, there are about 18 million young people out of work with bleak prospects of jobs.

Corruption became rampant and the nexus between the corrupt coterie of businessmen and ruling party politicians began to alienate the middle classes and the intelligentsia. What began as a student movement in protests against quotas in jobs, which was seen as largesse for the ruling party broadened due to repression into a mass movement to uproot the Sheikh Hasina government.

Given the nature of such a movement, fundamentalist forces like the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami were able to also join the protests. The immediate aftermath of the abrupt departure of Sheikh Hasina and the collapse of the government machinery has been an anarchic situation. The police, hated for its killing-spree, now finds itself bearing the brunt of the anger of the people. Many police stations have been attacked or shut down. There have been widespread attacks on Awami League offices, businesses and houses of its functionaries and some have been killed.

The two days, after the fall of the government, have also seen attacks on Hindu temples and the minority community in several districts. It is evident that while the main brunt of the attacks is being faced by the Awami League leaders and businessmen, fundamentalist elements are also exploiting the chaos to target minorities.

However, what is heartening is the stand of the student leadership, civil society and certain political parties, who have called for protection of minority places of worship and defending the minority community. At the call of the student coordination body, there are squads, including of Muslims and Hindus, to protect temples in innumerable places.

It is imperative that an interim government be put in place immediately, so that a semblance and administration and law and order can be restored. Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank and Nobel laureate, has agreed to be the chief advisor in the interim government, as per the demand of the students. The other advisors in the government have to be appointed without much delay.

The student leadership, along with civil society organisations and democratic-secular and Left political forces, must unitedly work to ensure a smooth transition to a democratic order. This is particularly required recognising that the Jamaat-e-Islami and the fundamentalist forces are entrenched in society. Only a broad unity of all democratic forces can prevent any take-over by rightwing fundamentalist forces.

The role of the United States in the current scenario must also be watched closely by the progressive and Left forces in Bangladesh. More than Pakistan or China, it will be the United States which will actively interfere to reshape the agenda in the post-Hasina period. The US would like to draw Bangladesh into its Indo-Pacific strategy.

In India, as usual, the RSS-BJP circles and the corporate media have begun spinning out conspiracy theories regarding the developments in Bangladesh. The most popular one, which has echoed throughout the Godi media is that the ISI and China have jointly conspired to overthrow Sheikh Hasina. For this, various so-called evidence is being adduced. For the ruling circles in India and their media, it is inconceivable that there can be a popular mass movement in Bangladesh to overthrow a corrupt and authoritarian regime. The fact that Sheikh Hasina has been close to India is sufficient for them to put out theories of geopolitical intrigue. Such an attitude insults the intelligence and independent will of the people of Bangladesh.

Given the nature of the regime in India, the events in Bangladesh will also be viewed through Hindutva lenses. The BJP leader, Suvendu Adhikari, who is also the leader of the opposition in the assembly in West Bengal, has declared that one crore Hindus from Bangladesh will be seeking to come to India. He has also provocatively called for the use of the Citizenship Amendment Act to provide them with Indian citizenship.

One of the reasons there is a strong anti-India feeling among the people and the political circles in Bangladesh is because of the constant depiction of Bangladeshis as infiltrators into India. Remember the infamous remark of home minister, Amit Shah, that infiltrators are “termites”. The provocative and negative portrayal of the mass upheaval in Bangladesh through the media and Hindutva spokespersons will only fuel more anti-India sentiments in Bangladesh.

The best course for the Modi government is to refrain from any comment or action, which will be seen as interference in the internal affairs of Bangladesh. It should patiently work with the interim government when it is put in place and be supportive of all steps that will be taken for peace, normalcy and the restoration of a democratic set-up with free and fair elections. (IPA Service)

The article US Role In Post-Hasina Bangladesh Must Be Monitored Closely By Secular Forces appeared first on Arabian Post.

By P. Sudhir

The decadal census, which was due in 2021, has not been held so far. In the union budget 2024-25, no substantial provision has been made for conducting the census. The centre has also not extended the deadline of June 2024 to freeze administrative boundaries which are necessary to conduct the census as per the administrative boundaries like districts, taluk, block or village levels.

So the 2021 census, which should have begun in 2020, is indefinitely delayed. At that time, the government had stated that the census operations can be conducted only after the Covid, but now, three years later, there are no signs of the census being held even in 2024. India has become one of the four countries where no census has been held after the Covid.

From the time of British rule, the census has been conducted every ten years without fail. Even in 1941, during the Second World War, the census was held on a truncated basis. The census provides not only a population count, but also comprehensive data which includes household data, cultivating classes and agricultural workers in the rural areas. It also provides a picture of the urban-rural population, linguistic-speaking groups and data about Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

It is this wealth of data which enables policy planners and administrators at all levels to design policies which cater to different sections of people. For instance, the National Food Security Act provides that up to 75 per cent of the rural population and 50 per cent of the urban population shall be covered under the Act. Further, allocations “shall be calculated on the basis of the population estimates as per the census of which the relevant figures are published”. Using the 2021 census, around 81.5 crore were people covered under the Act. A calculation, based on the projected population in March 2024, would put that number at 93 crore. This would mean that due to the lack of a census, eleven crore people are being deprived of subsidised or free grains.

The constitutional amendment providing one-third reservation for women in parliament and state legislatures stipulates that this would be done after the census and the delimitation will take place after that. By not conducting the census, the reservation for women seems to be in the distant future (at least not in 2029).

Another fall-out of the lack of a census is that many villages that have been urbanised will not be able to get the statutory town status with the attendant, municipal administration and facilities.

A harmful consequence of not holding the census is that the delimitation of boundaries of parliamentary and legislative constituencies cannot take place. In a democracy, it is essential that constituencies are so demarcated that every person’s vote carries an equal weight.

So, why is the government showing no inclination to order a census? One reason could be the general contempt for statistical surveys conducted on a scientific basis that we have seen in the past few years. Various surveys have either been suppressed or the statistical parameters for the survey altered to distort it.

This is of a piece with the BJP-RSS promoting irrationality in politics and formulating policies. It is driven by the Hindutva ideology. For instance, the Assam chief minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, has repeatedly claimed that Muslims will overtake Hindus by 2041 census without a shred of evidence. On the basis of such irrational claims, anti-Muslim laws and measures have been put in place in Assam.

The census has become a victim of the anti-scientific outlook of the BJP and the Hindutva forces. So to ensure that policy making is driven by scientific data and to ensure justice for all oppressed sections in society, it is imperative to demand that the much-delayed 2021 census be held next year itself and the preparatory work for it should be undertaken in this year. This should be the demand of all democratic sections and the opposition. (IPA Service)

The article Narendra Modi Govt Is Indefinitely Delaying Work On Long Due 2021 Census appeared first on Arabian Post.

By P. Sudhir

The Indian economy is at a critical cross-road, where the GDP growth is in no way boosting the employment generation capacity. Even within the jobs created, 57.3 per cent are self-employed, 18.3 per cent are unpaid household workers and more than 45 per cent are employed in agriculture. The Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme launched in March 2020 has utterly failed to generate employment in manufacturing and strikingly India’s year-on-year manufacturing productivity has fallen by 2.38 per cent in 2022-23.

But due to the incentives and many other expropriatory bonanzas from the Modi government, India’s listed companies reaped enormous net profit at the rate of 10.1 per cent in 2023-24, which is the highest since 2007-08. Now the Economic Survey has stated that the Indian economy is in dire need to generate an average of nearly 78.5 lakh jobs annually in the non-farm sector to meet the needs of the rising workforce.

Given this acute employment crisis and the issue becoming a hot topic in the Lok Sabha election campaign, one would have thought that the first union budget of the third Modi government would pay special attention to employment generation and creating new job opportunities. However, the budget presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman is notable for the hollow and deceptive measures to create jobs in the formal sector while liberally doling out public funds to the corporates.

The finance minister has announced a set of Employment Linked Incentive (ELI) Schemes creating much hype among the corporate pundits. Scheme A is applicable to all employers whereas B and C are for specific categories. As per the scheme A, if an employer recruits a new worker or enlists any unlisted worker in EPFO, then the government will pay one month’s salary of the worker up to a cap of Rs 15,000 in three instalments. It means that, government is going to directly subsidise the employer one twelfth part of his payable annual wage share. Employers in manufacturing, who hires at least 50 new non-EPFO workers, will be eligible for scheme B. In this scheme, government will pay the employees’ and employers’ share of EPFO, calculated as 24 per cent of the salary component directly from the people’s money.

As per scheme C, any company that recruits 2-5 new employees will receive EPFO employer contributions of up to Rs 3,000 per month. Clearly, government will subsidise up to 32.33 per cent of the wage component from the public exchequer. Most harmful fact is that companies have to recruit new employees every year to avail this scheme; it means the workers recruited in the first year will be nothing but fixed-termed and thrown out after completion of one year and these schemes will accentuate retrenchment for availing government subsidy.

Another blow is the internship policy, where the government has delinquently allowed the top 500 most profiteering companies to run their entire production and services with interns/apprentices. Government will take the burden of monthly stipend of Rs 5,000 and one-time assistance of Rs 6,000 and the rest of the training cost can be taken from the company’s CSR funds. The pro-corporate government will by this notorious plan drive employment relation towards a fragile direction where the fresh intern batches, with the state-of-the-art knowledge of automation and technology and skill to learn fast are going to be burdened with the whole core responsibility of the production process. The huge reserve army of unemployed or vocationally educated youths will wait at the factory gates every year to replace the old batches from the process of production.

This siphoning of money from the public exchequer to private kitty will certainly not resolve even a bit of the unemployment problem. The way to enhance production linked profit is to enhance the unpaid labour component in it and the ELI and internship schemes are a deliberate attempt by the Modi government to put free labour at the disposal of the corporates. But, the persistent fall in aggregate demand owing to declining purchasing power of the people is bringing down the net sale and realisation of production linked profit and thus affects the mood of private investment towards production. Corporate income growth is consistently being channelised toward speculation. The government may subsidise the corporates but the state of the economy and the conditions of the people will be worsened further with these schemes. (IPA Service)

The article Pro-Corporate Fraudulent Employment Schemes Mark 2024-25 Budget appeared first on Arabian Post.

By P. Sudhir

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Moscow on July 9-10 saw the revival of the annual summit meetings between the leaders of India and Russia. The last summit had been held in 2021 when President Putin visited Delhi. The visit has resulted in further strengthening the strategic partnership between India and Russia.

The joint vision statement issued after the talks focuses more on economic cooperation and trade unlike earlier meetings. The decision to increase trade to 100 billion dollars by 2030 was announced. This is a feasible goal given the large amount of oil imports from Russia at discounted rates in the background of the western sanctions.

The statement also announced that the Intergovernmental Commission on Military and Military Technical Cooperation will hold its next session in Moscow in the second half of this year. The military cooperation will be reoriented to joint research and development, co-development and joint production of advanced defence technology and systems. This is an important step given India’s close ties with Russia in purchase of military equipment and going towards co-production.

The Modi visit to Moscow and the summit meeting with President Putin has been criticised by United States and spokespersons for the Biden administration. The US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has stated that “The bet on Russia as a long-term reliable partner is not a good bet”. The United States was particularly irked by the fact that the Modi visit to Moscow coincided with the NATO summit in Washington whose purpose was to unitedly target Russia over the Ukraine war and to show how Russia is globally isolated. The Modi visit hampered this projection.

The United States is signalling that India is now a strategic ally and it is expected to behave accordingly. The US ambassador to India Eric Garcetti warned that “the US-India defence partnership stands amongst the most consequential in the world”, but “don’t take the relationship for granted”. In another revealing remark he said “I know India likes its strategic autonomy. But in times of conflict, there is no such thing as strategic autonomy”

The United States is cautioning the Modi government that it has now various commitments in terms of strategic and defence ties with the United States and it should act accordingly. Unlike the time when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, and India was critical of the US military action, times have changed. At that time India had not entered into the various military and strategic agreements with the United States and had yet to become a strategic ally. Now, according to the Americans, it cannot exercise strategic autonomy when it comes to issues like the conflict in Ukraine where the United States and NATO are aiding Ukraine

There are some lessons for the Modi government in this episode. Soon after the visit, the US National Security Advisor Sullivan spoke to the Indian NSA Ajit Doval. It is reported that both sides talked of holding the Quad foreign ministers meeting in Tokyo in the end of July and the summit meeting of Quad country leaders towards the end of the year. India is trying to reassure the US that it is fully committed to this US-led platform for the Indo-Pacific region. The United States will, despite the limitations that it is the fag end of the Biden term, try to further exercise pressure on India to participate in the strategic and military goals of the US and the Asia-Pacific region.

Here comes the contradiction emerging in India’s foreign policy and strategic vision. India is an important member of the BRICS which has expanded now and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. India continues to aspire to be the leading voice of the Global South. But, its strategic autonomy has already been severely compromised by its tying itself to the US bandwagon in Asia.

As far as the United States is concerned, notwithstanding the talk of “shared values” and “two great democracies coming together”, the real value it sees in India is its role as an anti-China force.

The Modi government should realise that this motive of the United States does not conform to our national interests. If it is really concerned about India’s strategic autonomy and following an independent foreign policy, it should take more steps to resolve the differences with China, particularly centred on the border question. If progress is made on this front, India will find itself in a much better position to retain its strategic autonomy and to work out a range of policies which will enhance its national interests. This, of course would also entail getting out of the defence agreements with the United States. (IPA Service)

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By P. Sudhir

People of France have voted against the far-right in the parliamentary elections. Contrary to many opinion polls, the National Rally of Le Pen could win only 143 seats and stood third. The newly formed Left coalition, New Popular Front achieved a victory by emerging as the largest bloc with182 seats, while President Macron’s group Ensemble won 163 seats. As a result of this fractured mandate, no single party or Front secured an outright majority. For a majority, one needs to win 289 in the 577-seat National Assembly. The New Popular Front fell short of majority by over 100 seats. These elections were called by President Macron, after his Party received a setback in the elections to the European Union parliament held in June.

Fearing the growth of far-right, immediately after the elections to the EU parliament, people of France marched in huge numbers across the country. They clearly expressed their opposition to the divisive and reactionary politics of the far-right. Many parties on the Left correctly assessed the peoples’ mood and formed a coalition – the New Popular Front. This Front comprised France Unbowed of Jean Luc Melenchon, the Socialist Party, the Greens and the Communist Party of France. They had announced their 150-point agenda for action if voted to power. Though this Front was formed only a few days before the elections, they put up a strong performance and emerged as a force that could halt the far-right.

In the first phase, Le Pen’s party emerged as a front runner after securing 33.1 per cent of the polled votes. They were followed by the New Popular Front, with 28 per cent and Macron’s group, which got 21 per cent. As no Front was able to win an outright majority, a second round was held, where only those who secured more than 12.5 per cent of the votes were allowed to contest. This narrowed the field of candidates to only three candidates from the above three Fronts.

People’s antipathy towards the far-right made all the opposing parties to work out tactics for their defeat. Accordingly, more than 200 candidates who stood third in the first round, withdrew their candidatures. The New Popular Front immediately withdrew its candidates. However, all the candidates from Macron’s group did not reciprocate this gesture. Many of them refused to withdraw as they equated Melenchon’s Left-wing France Unbowed with Le Pen’s far-right National Rally.

In spite of such hurdles, results show that the far-right is pushed to the third position and once again prevented by the people from assuming the seat of power. People’s antipathy towards the policies of the far-right, together with the availability of trustworthy options to defeat these forces contributed a lot to their defeat.

Macron, commanding a majority in the National Assembly, had implemented austerity measures, dictated by neoliberal policies. The government refused to tax the wealthy, but imposed all sorts of taxes on the working people. Retirement age of workers was increased. Pension reforms were carried out. Workers and farmers protested against these moves and organised huge demonstrations and sustained struggles. The months long struggle of the workers and the ‘Yellow Vests’ movement of the farmers and people were two big reflections of popular anger against Macron’s government.

The far-right fed on this discontent generated by the government’s policies. They blamed the influx of migrants for all these problems. They injected racial and religious hatred among the people and divided the society. The failure of all the traditional establishment parties like the Conservatives and Socialists, together with the weaknesses of the Communist party and environmental groups like the Greens, aided the growth of the far-right. Le Pen or her party never opposed pension reforms or increase in retirement age. Many big corporates representing sections of the ruling classes openly supported Le Pen and her party. They wanted to ensure that the Left does not benefit from people’s discontent at any cost.

Le Pen’s adherence to neoliberal philosophy, combined with her divisive politics made people apprehensive. They realised that once elected to power, such a party would not solve any of their basic issues, but would create new problems by breaking the social fabric. People did not forget the horrors of fascism and Nazism and were not ready for an encore.

The New Popular Front, won people’s acceptance due to their economic agenda and also their willingness to confront the growth of far-right. They promised restoration of certain social welfare measures, reversal of certain neoliberal policies, particularly ‘austerity’ measures. They promised to decrease the retirement age, undo pension reforms and tax the wealthy.

The elections in France shows how divided the society is. Though Le Pen’s National Rally was not able to win a majority, it was able to nearly double its numbers in the Assembly. This is a chilling reminder of how deep the far-right ideology has penetrated into society.

These divisions will now play in the formation of the new government too. Macron is not ready to forego his hold on governmental power, even though his gamble in calling snap elections has failed. He might not have foreseen the formation of a Left coalition and its strong electoral performance. For him, the far-right is not a big threat as many of his policies have led to the normalisation of the far-right ideology. French ruling classes too prefer an alliance between the Conservative right and the far-right to prevent the Left from assuming power. Such a coalition would enable them to continue with neoliberal policies.

In the New Popular Front, there is no unanimity on how to share power. The Socialist Party and the Greens are not ready to accept Melenchon as the leader, though his party won the highest seats in the Front. There exist some serious differences on economic policies and Melenchon is considered to be ‘extreme Left’ and an anti-capitalist. There are attempts to utilise these differences and wean them away to form a centre-left government.

All such attempts are a disrespect to the people’s mandate. People have voted both against Macron and Le Pen. They have voted against the far-right and also neoliberal economic policies. Any government formed, should respect the peoples’ verdict by considering this reality. Only then would they be able to meet people’s aspirations. Any other step, would be disastrous and only lead to further strengthening of the far-right. The portent threat of far-right is not completely warded off, it is only halted for now. (IPA Service)

The article French Voters Have Given A Firm Mandate For Anti-Far Right Government appeared first on Arabian Post.

Arabian Post Staff -Dubai

Ram Buxani, a leading figure in Dubai’s Indian business community and a renowned philanthropist, passed away on Monday at his residence. He was 83 years old.

Buxani’s life embodied the spirit of entrepreneurship that has fueled Dubai’s remarkable growth. Arriving in the emirate in 1959 at the age of 18, he witnessed firsthand its transformation from a modest trading hub to a global metropolis. His journey mirrored that of Dubai itself – a testament to hard work, vision, and the potential that flourishes in a dynamic environment.

Buxani’s legacy extends far beyond his role as the chairman of the ITL Cosmos Group, a highly diversified business conglomerate with interests in distribution, manufacturing, and retail. He was a pillar of the Indian community in Dubai, actively involved in social and cultural initiatives. His philanthropic endeavors touched countless lives, supporting educational institutions and causes that empowered underprivileged communities.

News of Buxani’s passing sent shockwaves through the business and social circles of Dubai. Tributes poured in from prominent figures, all acknowledging his immense contributions. India’s Ambassador to the UAE, Sanjay Sudhir, expressed his deep sorrow, calling Buxani “a guide, a role model, and a mentor” who had brought immense pride to the Indian community.

“In his passing, the community has lost a leader who embodied the values of hard work, integrity, and service, ” said Sudhir.

Local business leaders lauded Buxani’s pioneering spirit and his dedication to fostering strong economic ties between India and the UAE. They credited him with playing a crucial role in creating opportunities for Indian businesses in Dubai and strengthening the emirate’s position as a global trade hub.

Buxani’s life story serves as an inspiration not only for aspiring entrepreneurs but also for anyone seeking to build a meaningful life in a foreign land. He arrived in Dubai with a dream and the determination to succeed. Through his unwavering dedication and commitment to the community, he not only achieved remarkable success but also left a lasting legacy that will continue to inspire future generations.

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The Mumbai police on Monday found itself in a spot with the application of a provision of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita in the BMW-hit-and-run incident, among the first high-profile cases under the newly-introduced law that replaced the British-era Indian Penal Code.

A woman was killed and her husband injured in Worli early Sunday morning after their two-wheeler was hit from the rear by a BMW, which was being allegedly driven by the son of Palghar Shiv Sena leader Rajesh Shah.

Shah, his absconding son and main accused Mihir Shah as well as their family driver Rajrishi Bidawat were charged under provisions of BNS, including sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 238 (destruction of evidence).

During the remand hearing of Rajesh Shah earlier in the day, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate SP Bhosale, among other queries, posed questions to the investigating officer on the rationale behind applying section 105 of the new law.

When the IO and other police personnel started fumbling with answers, the magistrate passed a copy of the BNS and asked them to go through the section in question.

The court then asked the prosecution to take a five-minute break and answer its queries.

However, even after the break, the police could not come up with a concrete response to the magistrate’s queries. The court was adjourned again, but with the magistrate’s remarks that the police ought to do their “homework” and come prepared.

Fifteen minutes later, the prosecution submitted a handwritten note terming it as additional remand, which the court took on record and the hearing resumed.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (Sewree) SP Bhosale remanded Rajesh Shah in 14-day judicial custody and sent Bidawat to one-day police custody.

Rajesh Shah was remanded in judicial custody after the court observed that Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) section 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) did not apply to him.

The defence, represented by advocate Sudhir Bhardwaj said the charge of culpable homicide was not applicable on Rajesh Shah since he was not driving the car nor was he present at the spot.

Rajesh Shah was later granted bail.

With inputs from NDTV

IPA News

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By P Sudhir

The BJP has ensured that the three new laws passed by the government at the tail end of the last Lok Sabha in a most cavalier and undemocratic fashion have now been enforced all over the country on July 1.  These laws, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam have replaced the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and the Indian Evidence Act respectively.

It is nothing short of mind-boggling that the entire system of criminal justice has been subjected to major changes without preparation, discussion and debate and it demonstrates that for the BJP nothing has changed even after the electorate has given a verdict on its performance and policies that have robbed it of its majority in parliament.

The three laws which have been given Hindi names only and have been published only in that language were not discussed in the Lok Sabha at any length.  They were sent to a select committee for a very perfunctory study and were then passed within minutes of being placed before the house.  The house itself was deprived of the presence of most of the members of the opposition since 148 of them had been suspended and, therefore, could not attend its proceedings.

The fact that the legal fraternity, members of all levels of the judiciary and even the police have not been familiarised with the new laws will naturally create tremendous problems as far as their interpretation and implementation is concerned.  This, of course, will be compounded exponentially by the fact that with the enforcement of these laws, a parallel system of criminal justice will come into existence.  A person who has committed a crime before July 1 will be tried by the substantive criminal laws in existence then.  If the same crime is committed after July 1, the accused will be tried under the new substantive laws.

This means that a parallel system of justice is being set up and both laws will run concurrently and there will be disputes as to which system is to be applied.  For example, in any one case the ones who were charged in FIRs before July 1 will demand that they be tried under the old laws while the prosecution may try to have them tried under the new laws.  Appeals will also become very complicated.

Laws are interpreted at the hands of the Supreme Court and the amendments in the CrPC made in 1973 have only now achieved some certainty.  For the new laws, that kind of certainty will take another 50 years. One can imagine what will ensue when thousands of magistrates in the country interpret the new laws in different ways.  Of course this will pose tremendous problems for the accused who will have to face many interpretations and many delays.  If the accused is in custody this will further aggravate his/her problems and suffering.

While Article 21 of the Constitution of India guarantees that no citizen will be deprived of life and liberty except by procedure established by law, this will be difficult to enforce since what the law is, is itself being disputed.  These new laws introduce both uncertainty and vagueness as to what the law says.

Senior lawyers have calculated that the large number of pending criminal cases will increase by 30 per cent after the new laws are enforced.  They will effectively ensure that justice is denied to thousands, especially those that lack resources.  It seems that the government has made no attempt to calculate what the effect of the new laws on pendency will be.  Perhaps it does not care.

Apart from these problems of translation and implementation which could be excused as unavoidable glitches, some sections of the new laws are very draconian while others are certainly going to place obstacles in access to justice.

The first step in accessing justice is the registration of an FIR.  Under the new laws, the registration of an FIR pertaining to any offence that carries a punishment of three to seven years of imprisonment can be delayed for up to 14 days while the station house officer applies his mind to studying various aspects of the matter.  This is in complete contravention to Supreme Court rulings that insist that police register FIRs immediately.  The right given to the SHO to delay registration by up to 14 days will, of course, lead to harassment and coercion of the victim to withdraw his/her complaint, it can lead to corruption of the police and it gives an opportunity to the accused to use various methods to save himself/herself.

This change ushered in by the new law will be extremely detrimental to the right to justice of the poor and weak who are already handicapped in accessing this right in many ways.  The new laws also allow the police to seek remand for longer periods beyond the 15 day limit set in the previous  law; use handcuffs for ‘repeat offenders’ (a new category) and, therefore, enhance their power to deny justice to the weak, poor and oppressed and to those whom they feel are inimical to the government’s interests.

Another extremely dangerous aspect of the new laws is that while Section 124A of the IPC which defined sedition had been done away with earlier by the Supreme Court, this re-appears in Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita along with additional references to the sovereignty and integrity of India which were not there in the original Section 124A. According to senior lawyers, this introduces the offence of being ‘anti-national’ in the law which was not the case earlier.  This, naturally, impacts extremely adversely on the freedom of speech and expression and the right to dissent.  The record of the government even before the passage of these new laws has been harsh and unjust as far as the treatment of dissenters was concerned.  Now the new laws will make the situation even worse.

In addition, many offences under the UAPA have been included as offences under the new criminal law.  This means that an accused could actually face two charge-sheets and two investigating authorities, the NIA under the UAPA and the local police under the new criminal law. While only one punishment can be meted out, the process itself will be harshly punitive.  Also while under UAPA, the investigating officer is of a higher rank than the local IO in the police station, under the new law any ordinary police station will have the right to investigate terrorism.  Even more disturbing is the fact that while the government has to give sanction to prosecute under UAPA, under the new law any ordinary police officer can prosecute anyone for terrorism.

The new laws must be firmly opposed.  Lawyers’ organisations all over the country are planning protests and boycotts of courts; thousands have signed petitions addressed to the Supreme Court and, as information about the laws becomes more widely known, protests and opposition will continue to grow.

The NDA government must be forced by public opinion to keep the three laws in abeyance till a fresh scrutiny is done. These laws threaten the life and liberty of all citizens of India and cannot be accepted in their present form. (IPA Service)

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By P. Sudhir

The formation of a Modi-led NDA coalition government has led to expectations in some circles that this will be a government which will face serious constraints in going ahead with the BJP/RSS’s authoritarian-communal-corporate agenda. Some of these expectations are exaggerated. The fact that the BJP has lost its majority and confined to 240 seats in the Lok Sabha may check or slow down certain aspects of the agenda which Modi and the RSS/BJP were aiming to implement in the third term of Modi’s rule.

Constitutional changes, which could further attenuate the democratic system, undermine the secular principle and reinforce authoritarian centralism, may be difficult to achieve now. But the thrust of the Modi regime in terms of its economic policies, subversion of institutions and authoritarian drive will see no qualitative change.

The Modi regime’s confrontationist stance towards the opposition and contempt for parliamentary norms was displayed at the outset of the convening of parliament. On the issue of electing the new speaker, the government refused to offer the deputy speakership to the opposition, thereby thwarting a consensus on the matter.

Within days of the swearing-in of the new government, we have been reminded that the architecture of an authoritarian-repressive regime is very much in place. The chief minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, who was given bail by a lower court saw that bail being nullified by the High Court. In order to make sure that Kejriwal does not come out of jail, the CBI has brazenly effected another arrest in the same case when he was produced in court. Fourteen years after a case was lodged against writer Arundhati Roy, the Lt. Governor of Delhi has given sanction for her prosecution under the UAPA.

From July 1, the three criminal codes which have replaced the earlier criminal procedure and penal laws will come into effect. Many of the provisions in these codes are going to impose more restrictions on the democratic rights of citizens and enhance police powers to proceed against citizens, including more draconian powers to punish offences like sedition.

With Amit Shah being reappointed as the home minister, the central agencies like the Enforcement Directorate, CBI and other agencies can be expected to carry on with their work of targeting the opposition and also any other persons or entities which are seen as hostile or needs to be intimidated into submission.

Many of the laws adopted in the last phase of the previous government such as the Telecom Act and the IT Act Rules are going to come into force now. The Telecom Act 2023 has been partially notified on June 26. This allows the government to stop transmission of any message on the internet in the name of public safety during the public emergency. Ten central agencies are empowered to intercept telecom communication provided they have the home secretary’s permission to do so.

Big business was unstinting in its support for BJP and Narendra Modi in the run-up to the elections. The stock market, which had tumbled when the results came that BJP had lost its majority, shot up again when the announcement was made about Modi-led NDA government. Nirmala Sitharaman, in her first statement after reappointment as the finance minister, has stated that the next generation reforms will be taken up immediately. Big business is busy lobbying the finance minister with their demands for the union budget.

The ushering in of the third Modi government is a signal that the pro-corporate, neo-liberal policies will continue with full vigour. One can expect privatisation moves like the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) to be unrolled further. The nature of the allied parties in government like the Telugu Desam Party and the JD(U) indicate that there would be no resistance to the economic policies.

There will be no let-up in the pursuit of Hindutva politics and targeting of the minorities has also become clear in the first few days after the Modi government was sworn into office. There have been a number of incidents targeting Muslims, particularly in the BJP-ruled states. In Chhattisgarh, three cattle transporters were attacked and killed by a mob in Arang, near Raipur. Their only crime being that they were cattle traders. In BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, in Mandla district, eleven people were arrested on charges of having beef stored in the refrigerators in their homes. Subsequently, the local administration demolished eleven houses of the accused persons on the pretext that they were illegal encroachments. In Jodhpur in Rajasthan, there was a communal clash and 51 people were arrested. Creating communal polarisation and targeting of minorities are part of the generic politics of the Hindutva forces and there will be no restraint or check on this by the central government.

What must be recognised is that BJP is the dominant force in the coalition and the two major allies – the TDP and JD (U) – are neither interested nor in a position to assert any political or policy position. As far as the TDP is concerned, its leader Chandrababu Naidu, is focused on consolidating his position in Andhra Pradesh and his approach to the centre is confined to the funds and packages he can negotiate for his priority projects in Andhra Pradesh. The JD(U), on its part, does not have anything beyond the horizons of Bihar, where it hopes to consolidate its position keeping an eye on the assembly election due next year. This reality must be kept in mind when working out the opposition strategy.

There is no doubt that the fight against the Modi government’s policies and the exposure of its misdeeds can be carried out in a better fashion in parliament given the increased strength of the opposition. But it is more important to build up the resistance to the Modi regime’s authoritarian attacks on democracy and its attacks on the people’s livelihood through the neo-liberal policies by organising struggles and mass protests.

Here, the role of the Left is important because it is the most firm and consistent opponent of neo-liberal policies and the Hindutva ideology. While on the broader issues of defence of the constitution, democracy and federalism, the INDIA bloc and the wider opposition unity will have to play a major role, the Left has to play the key role in mobilising the people in their day-to-day struggles and linking up these struggles to the overall opposition to the neo-liberal policies and making alternative policies a credible platform. The various mass organisations and democratic forums associated with Left will have to build the widest united actions.

The main lesson to be drawn from the Lok Sabha verdict is that some political space has opened up for intensifying the resistance to the Hindutva-corporate nexus. (IPA Service)

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In a setback for Arvind Kejriwal, the Delhi High Court paused his bail order in a corruption case related to the Delhi Liquor Policy until a hearing on Enforcement Directorate’s petition. The probe agency challenged Kejriwal’s bail just hours before he was to leave Tihar jail.

The ED mentioned its petition challenging the trial court’s bail order for an urgent hearing before a bench of Justices Sudhir Kumar Jain and Ravinder Dudeja.

The high court said till it heard the petition, the trial court order would not be acted upon.

Kejriwal’s wife, Sunita Kejriwal, and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders had planned to visit Tihar Jail at 4 pm today to greet the Delhi Chief Minister.

Yesterday, a Delhi court ordered  Kejriwal’s release on a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh but imposed certain conditions before granting him the relief, including that he would not try to hamper the investigation or influence the witnesses. The court had accepted Kejriwal’s argument that the probe agency hasn’t presented enough evidence since arresting the Delhi Chief Minister on March 21.

The bail came after multiple rounds in trial courts where Arvind Kejriwal has been repeatedly denied bail. He hasn’t stepped down as Delhi Chief Minister despite calls from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party for his resignation.

In May, the Supreme Court had issued interim bail to Kejriwal for election campaigning. He returned to prison two days before the results were declared.

The ED arrested Kejriwal over money laundering allegations while framing the Delhi liquor policy for 2021-22, which was later scrapped after the Lieutenant Governor raised red flags. The ED has alleged the money Kejriwal got from the liquor sellers was used to fund the party’s campaign in Goa since he is the convenor of the AAP.

With inputs from NDTV

IPA News

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By P. Sudhir

The overall results of the Lok Sabha election are certainly a setback for the BJP. Getting 240 seats, it failed to achieve the absolute majority it had gained in the 2014 and 2019 elections. Narendra Modi is now heading a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition government with parties like the Telugu Desam Party and the Janata Dal (United) providing the numbers for a majority in the Lok Sabha.

This is one of the favourable outcomes of the people’s electoral verdict and it happened because the BJP suffered a major loss in Uttar Pradesh as also losses in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana and West Bengal.

However, when evaluating the results, the gains made by the BJP should not be ignored. Apart from its unprecedented showing in Odisha, where it won 20 out of the 21 Lok Sabha seats and an absolute majority in the assembly for the first time, what should cause concern is the gradual advances of the BJP in the southern states.

In terms of seats, it may appear that the BJP has not made any advance – it had won 29 seats in the five southern states in 2019 and now in 2024 it could only maintain the same number. But a detailed analysis state-wise and the vote share it has gained in each state provides a different picture:

Telangana is a state where the BJP won 4 seats in the 2019 election, getting 19.45 per cent of the votes polled. In the 2024 election, it doubled its tally to 8 and raised its vote share substantially to 35.19 percent. The drastic fall in the BRS vote share benefited the BJP.

In Karnataka, the BJP has lost ground. It had won 25 seats, polling 51.38 percent in the 2019 election. Now it has got 17 seats and its vote share fell to 46.09 percent. However, by allying with the Janata Dal (S), which got 5.64 percent of the vote, the NDA polled a combined 51.73 percent. This alliance also helped in limiting the extent of loss of seats.

In Kerala, the BJP won the Thrissur seat, the first time the party has won a Lok Sabha seat in the state. The party’s vote share went up from 12.9 percent in 2019 to 16.67 percent. The NDA has registered 19.2 percent – the highest ever in Kerala. The warning signal sent out by this result must be taken with the utmost seriousness by the Left and democratic forces.

In Tamil Nadu, the BJP failed to win a single seat. Unlike in 2019, when the BJP had an alliance with the AIADMK, this time the BJP fought separately with a few allies like the PMK and splinters from the AIADMK. The BJP’s vote share went up from 3.66 per cent in 2019, contesting 5 seats, to 11.24 per cent now, contesting 23 seats. It should also be noted that the BJP came second in 10 constituencies, which indicates that in some seats it was able to garner AIADMK votes.

In Andhra Pradesh, where the BJP has been very weak, it has benefitted from the alliance with the TDP, getting 3 parliament seats and polling 11.29 percent of the votes. In 2019, it had got only a meagre 0.96 percent of the votes. In the 2024 assembly election, it polled a smaller percentage of 2.83 percent of the votes, but won 8 seats and would be given minister-ships in the Chandrababu Naidu government. The BJP will be hoping to expand its strength, riding piggy-back on the TDP.

This brief overall sketch of the BJP’s position in the five southern states reveals that there is a slow, at times halting, advance of the BJP in the southern states, other than in Karnataka, where it had established a strong base more than two decades ago. What this underlines is the necessity not to underestimate the BJP-RSS combine’s capacity to occupy new ground and to retrieve spaces they have lost.

The composition of the new ministry under Modi shows that all key portfolios, in addition to home, defence, finance and external affairs, have been retained by the BJP. Both through the State machinery and its organisational resources, the BJP-RSS combine will work to expand and consolidate its influence. The Left, democratic and secular forces must evolve, at the all-India level and state-wise, to counter and check the Hindutva ideology. (IPA Service)

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Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had a witty response ready when he was asked, yet again, who would be the Prime Ministerial candidate of the INDIA bloc. “It’s like asking ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’,” Kharge said, referring to the popular TV quiz show hosted by Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

“If we form the government, all the leaders will decide who will be their PM,” he said during a press conference in Shimla.

Kharge also reminded that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance ran the government for 10 years from 2004 to 2014 without proposing a PM candidate before the elections.

“In 2004, Congress leaders wanted Sonia Gandhi to be the Prime Minister but she refused. We didn’t have the majority, we had 140 seats. We returned to power in 2009 with 209 seats. We formed the UPA alliance and ran the government for 10 years,” he said.

“Sometimes even wise people forget history,” the 81-year-old said, taking a jibe at the ruling BJP who had been targeting the INDIA bloc for failing to come up with a Prime Ministerial candidate.

Targeting the BJP, Kharge said that the party lied to the country “when it talked about 2 crore jobs in 2014, when it talked about reducing inflation. Nothing happened”.

“The Prime Minister made big promises in 2014 and 2019 but did not look back after that. He did not help Himachal Pradesh when it was struck by a natural disaster. The BJP is working to topple governments in the country and has tried to destabilise the Congress government of Himachal,” he alleged.

On February 27, six former Congress MLAs – Rajinder Rana (Sujanpur), Sudhir Sharma (Dharamshala), Ravi Thakur (Lahaul and Spiti), Inder Dutt Lakhanpal (Barsar), Chetanya Sharma (Gagret) and Devinder Kumar Bhutto (Kutlehar) – had voted in favour of the BJP Rajya Sabha nominee Harsh Mahajan.

Two days later, they were disqualified for defying a party whip to be present in Vidhan Sabha and vote in favour of the government during the cut motions and budget. These MLAs later joined the BJP and were given the ticket from their respective assembly seats.

Polling for all four Himachal Pradesh Lok Sabha seats will be held on June 1. The results will be out on June 4, as in the rest of the country.

With inputs from NDTV

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IPA News

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By P. Sudhir

Elections to half the seats in the Lok Sabha have been completed with the third phase of polling being over on May 7. This has provided enough experience and time to assess how the Election Commission (EC) has gone about superintending the conduct of a free and fair poll. The verdict in this matter can only be that it has failed badly.

All the apprehensions about the work of the EC, two of whose commissioners were appointed just three days before the announcement of the election schedule, are proving to be true.

The EC has not discharged its elementary responsibility of enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and ensuring a level playing field for all parties. Contrary to the self-satisfactory statement issued by the EC about its record on enforcement of MCC during the first month since the announcement of elections on March 16, the period saw the EC abdicating its responsibilities.

First of all, the EC was a silent spectator to the State sponsored repression of opposition leaders. The national convenor of Aam Aadmi Party and chief minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, was arrested on March 21, five days after the announcement of the elections and the MCC coming into force. The EC should have issued an advisory to all the central agencies not to take any coercive action against leaders of political parties during the period of elections. But this was not done. The income tax department froze the national bank account of the Congress party and later the CPI(M) Thrissur district committee’s bank account. The aim was to financially cripple the parties concerned during the election campaign.

The most glaring lapse as far as the enforcement of the MCC is concerned, is the refusal to take any action against the rabidly communal speeches being made by prime minister Narendra Modi. The complaint lodged by the CPI(M) general secretary against the speeches made by Modi in Ajmer on April 6 and Pilibhit on April 9 accusing opposition parties of being against Lord Ram, “insulting Lord Ram” and “harbouring hatred of Ram Temple” was totally ignored. After that when Modi made a bigoted speech demonising Muslims in Banswara on April 21, complaints were lodged by various parties and prominent citizens. The response of the EC was not to issue notice to the person who made these speeches, instead notice was issued to the BJP president JP Nadda. Till now, that is nearly two weeks after, there has been no response from the BJP president, except to ask for extension of time twice to reply. In the meantime, Modi has continuously kept up a barrage of speeches filled with communal content and inciting passions against the opposition.

In the latest instance, when the Karnataka BJP state unit brought out objectionable videos targeting Muslims which were posted on the social media platform X, based on a complaint, the EC directed the X platform to takedown the video. However, by the time this direction was given the final phase of polling in Karnataka was over and the video has not yet been taken down.

The EC seems more prompt in taking action on complaints about personal attacks on candidates or making false allegations against parties, but does not want to take any action against hate speeches and Hindutva propaganda to create communal polarisation.

There is also a marked deterioration in the efficiency and technical expertise of the Commission. The EC, till a decade ago had a good record in conducting and managing the mechanics of polling and its statistical compilation. This solid reputation has been eroding over the last few years. After the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the final figures of polling in absolute numbers, constituency-wise, state-wise and all India-wise were provided only after two years. This time too, after the first and second phase of polling, it took eleven days after the first phase polling for the final voting percentages to be announced. The second phase final percentage of polling was given four days after and there was a nearly six percentage point increase. The EC has not given any explanation for this unusual increase. Moreover, the absolute number of votes polled either at the constituency level, state or all India level have not been provided. These numbers must be available with the EC, since only then can the percentages be worked out. If there is any discrepancy, it can be found only by comparing it with the absolute numbers polled. The EC has not come forward to give any explanation for not providing the full data.

A ‘tame’ Election Commission which cannot stand up to the executive or the ruling party can never discharge the constitutional duty assigned to it which is “superintendence, direction and control of elections”. The shadow of what happened to Ashok Lavasa who was an election commissioner at the time of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections must be haunting the present commissioners. The EC is the vital institution which can safeguard the conduct of a free and fair poll. After these elections it will be essential to take all the necessary steps required to restore the independence and integrity of the commission. The first step, in that, would be to amend the law on appointment of election commissioners passed by the Modi government in 2023. The Supreme Court, which had suggested a different procedure, should step in to ensure that this is done. (IPA Service)

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Several former MLAs of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly are expected to join the BJP and contest the upcoming bypolls on its ticket, sources told Press Trust of India today, as the political crisis plaguing the state continues to rumble.

Six rebel Congress MLAs – Sudhir Sharma, Ravi Thakur, Rajinder Rana, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Chetanya Sharma and Devinder Kumar Bhutto – were disqualified on February 29 for defying a party whip to be present in the House and vote in favour of the Himachal Pradesh government during a cut motion and budget.

The Election Commission has announced bypolls for their constituencies.

Three Independent MLAs – Ashish Sharma, Hoshiyar Singh and KL Thakur – submitted their resignations on Friday. Bypolls are expected to be held for their seats as well.

“We have submitted our resignations. We will join the BJP and contest the elections on its ticket,” Mr Singh had later told reporters.

The Congress government led by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu was last month plunged into a crisis after the BJP won the Rajya Sabha poll for the state’s lone seat due to the support of these nine MLAs.

Though Mr Sukhu has been putting up a brave face and there appears to be no immediate threat to his government, the BJP is looking to bring down his dispensation with bypoll wins amid a view that it may draw more legislators of the ruling party into its fold.

With the disqualification of the six Congress MLAs, the strength of the ruling party came down from 39 to 33 in the now 62-member assembly. Its original strength is 68. The BJP has 25 members.

The Speaker, who can vote only in the case of a tie during a floor test, is affiliated to the Congress.

The resignations of the three Independent MLAs have further reduced the assembly’s strength.

With inputs from NDTV

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By P. Sudhir

Three developments in one week – one positive and the other two, negative. The first was the Supreme Court order directing the State Bank of India to submit to the Election Commission by March 12 the details of electoral bonds for the Election Commission to put up on their website by March 15. This order came in the wake of the SBI’s appeal for time until June 30 to submit the details about the electoral bonds.

The Supreme Court rejected the appeal and now the people know who all donated funds to the BJP and at which juncture? An analysis of the data will establish if there was quid pro quo involved and whether any of the donor-companies were being hounded by central investigating agencies. This will help the electorate judge if there was a Hindutva-corporate corrupt nexus?

The second development was the Modi government’s notification of rules for the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), more than four years after the Act was adopted in December 2019. The rules have been notified on the eve of the announcement of the Lok Sabha polls and this has raised eyebrows. The rules confirm that people of certain religious identities alone will be eligible for this fast track to citizenship.

Muslims are excluded. It is not necessary here to go into all the major constitutional and legal objections to the CAA. The rules operationalising this Act must be vigorously opposed. A specific problem arising out of the rules is that the cut-off date of December 31, 2014 provided for violates the provision of the Assam Accord where the cut-off date has been fixed as 1971. This had led to widespread opposition in Assam to the CAA when it was adopted.

Furthermore, the rules ensure that state governments have no say in the processing of applications for citizenship. The empowered committee at the state level and the district-level committees constituted to process the applications are packed with representatives of central government departments. There is only one invitee of the state government in both the state and district level committees. This has obviously been done to exclude state governments from having any say in the process of identifying people eligible for citizenship who are residing in their states. By some peculiar logic, officials of the postal department and railways have been found suitable for this work.

Here the Supreme Court has been remiss in not taking up and deciding on the around 200 petitions which were filed challenging the CAA as unconstitutional. Just as in the case of the electoral bonds and abrogation of Article 370, the delay and failure of the Supreme Court in giving a verdict has enabled the Modi government to get away with unconstitutional and undemocratic measures.

The third development concerns the Election Commission of India (ECI) which has a direct bearing on the conduct of the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. The past week saw the sudden resignation of one of the election commissioners, Arun Goel. Now, two new election commissioners have been appointed. But then, after the abrupt resignation of Arun Goel, there was only the chief election commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar remaining. The third member had already retired some months ago.

The appointment of Arun Goel itself had been done in great haste in November 2022 – a step that was questioned by a constitutional bench of the Supreme Court, which had been hearing a petition to lay down the procedure for the appointment of the election commissioners by a neutral independent committee.

It is unclear what the real reason is for the resignation of Arun Goel, but it had led to two vacancies in the commission. The constitutional bench of the Supreme Court had in March last year held that the appointment of CECs and ECs should be on the basis of the recommendation of a committee consisting of the chief justice of India (CJI), the prime minister and the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha. This was felt necessary by the court, so that the ECI could discharge its task of conducting free and fair polls by remaining aloof from all forms of subjugation by and interference from the executive.

However, after the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Modi government got a bill enacted in parliament regarding the appointment and conditions of service of the CEC and other election commissioners. This Act dropped the CJI from the selection committee and, instead, provided for a union cabinet minister to be nominated by the prime minister. Thus, the executive would have a majority in the committee of three, which defeats the purpose of the recommendation of the Supreme Court.

The three-member committee met on March 14 to select the two Election Commissioners. As expected, the two names suggested by the Government, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar, were selected. They will, along with the CEC, be conducting the Lok Sabha polls, which is to be announced shortly.

In the background of the systematic erosion of the independence of constitutional institutions, the subversion of the Election Commission as an independent body poses a serious threat to parliamentary democracy itself. (IPA Service)

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Six Congress MLAs from Himachal Pradesh who cross-voted for the BJP in the Rajya Sabha election has been disqualified from the assembly, the Speaker announced today.

The BJP had clapped for and congratulated the six MLAs for their ‘bravery’ yesterday when they came to the assembly, after staying the previous night in BJP-ruled Haryana. Their kick, however, has gone wide.

The disqualified MLAs are Rajinder Rana, Sudhir Sharma, Inder Dutt Lakhanpal, Devinder Kumar Bhutoo, Ravi Thakur, and Chetanya Sharma.

Assembly Speaker Kuldeep Singh Pathania today said they have been disqualified for defying the party whip to vote in favour of the government on the Finance Bill in the house yesterday. The assembly passed the state Budget after the Speaker suspended 15 BJP MLAs.

The actions of the six MLAs violated the anti-defection law, the Speaker said.

For now, the MLAs’ disqualification has closed the chapter for the ruling Congress in Himachal Pradesh after a two-day scare over the BJP returning to power with a no-trust vote, since the six MLAs had voted for the state’s Opposition party in the Rajya Sabha election.

The BJP had deduced the six Congress MLAs no longer trusted the ruling party.

With inputs from NDTV

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Amidst the political conundrum in Himachal Pradesh since Tuesday, after six Congress MLAs voted in favour of the BJP candidate in the Rajya Sabha polls, Congress sources say the grand old party has sought disqualification of the six rebel MLAs. Chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu reached Hotel Sisil and is currently in “constant touch with senior Congress leaders Rajiv Shukla and Bhupesh Baghel”.

Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former CM Jairam Thakur was seen coming out of Raj Bhavan in Shimla after meeting governor Shiv Pratap Shukla. Talking to the media on Wednesday, Thakur said, “Marshalls misbehaved with our MLAs, and the security in-charge said that they are just following the Speaker’s orders. This government has no right to stay in power.”

There were tell-tale signs of trouble and simmering discontent within the ranks for a while, but the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led government in Himachal Pradesh chose to take it lightly.

The rebellion was led by MLAs Sudhir Sharma and Rajendra Rana, who chose this moment to make their disgruntled voices heard. Sharma and Rana had a major grouse – they were not made ministers in the state government even though Rana had defeated BJP heavyweight Prem Kumar Dhumal in the 2012 elections. He won the Sujanpur seat again in 2017.

State Congress chief Pratibha Singh’s son and MLA Vikramaditya Singh on Wednesday said the case of some MLAs was ignored by Sukhu, which has led to the present situation. Sharma and Rana got four other MLAs to rebel – Inderdutt Lakhanpal, Davinder Kumar Bhutto, Ravi Thakur and Chaitanya Sharma. Another independent MLA from Hamirpur district, Ashish Sharma also voted for the BJP, while two more independents also moved to the saffron camp.

 What came as a shocker for Sukhu is that two of the MLAs – Rana and Lakhanpal – are from his home district of Hamirpur. This is not the first time Rana has picked up the banner of revolt in public. Earlier too, he had written to Sukhu to remove the director general of police in an alleged paper leak matter and protested against the CM when he gave cabinet ranks to some who did not even contest the elections.

The BJP’s winning candidate, Harsh Mahajan, was in the Congress till 2022 and a former four-time MLA with close links to these six rebels. It is what contributed to the quick turn of events on Tuesday as all six MLAs had attended a dinner with the CM just a night before. Majahan, who was a minister in the previous Virbhadra Singh-led government, was in touch with the six MLAs and capitalised on their discontentment.

The quick turn of events show that the decision to ignore Sharma and Rana for minister posts has cost Sukhu dear. Sources said this has also triggered an old rivalry within the party after Congress state president Pratibha Singh was overlooked for the chief minister’s chair in 2022 by the top leadership.

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By P. Sudhir

The Kerala chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, the entire cabinet and all the MLAs and MPs of the Left Democratic Front sat in protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on February 8. The sit-in was to highlight the central government’s discriminatory attitude to Kerala and the hostile actions of the centre to financially strangulate the state government. On the same day, big demonstrations were held over Kerala supporting the Delhi action. In various state capitals, meetings expressing solidarity with Kerala were held.

That the cabinet of an elected state government had to conduct such a protest in the capital of the country exemplifies the crisis created by the sustained assault on federalism by the Modi government.

In the case of Kerala, the union government has drastically reduced the financial support to the state. As far as tax devolution is concerned, the share given to the state has dropped from 3.875 per cent (at the time of the Tenth Finance Commission) to 1.9 per cent. Further, the union government is deliberately decreasing the divisible pool by imposing cess and surcharges. The revenue collected by the union government from cess increased from 6.4 per cent of its gross tax revenue in 2011-12 to 17.7 per cent in 2021-22, i.e., Rs 4,78,680 crores. If it had been levied as taxes, then the state governments would have got some share of this amount.

As per Article 293 of the Constitution, state legislatures have the power to fix the borrowing limit for the states. As per entry 43 of the states list, public debt is exclusively the right of the states. Despite this, the central government has been intervening to impose a net borrowing ceiling on the states and limit borrowing from all sources, including open market borrowings.

As a result of these attacks on fiscal federalism, the state has resource deficiency through the reduction of share of taxes from 3.89 per cent to 1.92 per cent; the stoppage of GST compensation and the denial of borrowings. The cumulative effect of these three measures is the loss of Rs 57,000 crore this year.

The use of centrally-sponsored schemes to encroach on states’ rights and intervening in subjects listed in the states list has also affected Kerala. The state received 85 per cent of the budgeted centrally-sponsored schemes in 2015-16. However, in 2021-22, this declined to just 40 per cent.

Along with this is the unconstitutional role of the governor in holding up bills passed by the legislative assembly and taking other obstructive positions.

This multi-pronged attack by the centre is meant to scuttle the remarkable progress made in the first term of the LDF government between 2016 and 2021. Realising that the LDF government’s policies will take Kerala forward and gain more popular support, the Modi government is resorting to these anti-democratic and anti-federal measures to stall Kerala’s development path.

Behind this approach is the Modi government’s and the BJP’s resolve to completely undermine the federal principle. The blatant discrimination against opposition-ruled states is also to prove that only a `double engine’ government – BJP at the centre and BJP government in the state – can deliver development and welfare to the people. For this brazen political motive, the BJP rulers are ready to destroy the essence of federalism.

The February 8 protest in Delhi is not a matter of Kerala alone. The issues raised are relevant for all states as the centre is bent upon turning the state into vassals and to use fiscal relations as a weapon against the opposition-run states. The drive for fiscal centralisation is part of the effort to create a unitary system. The slogan of One Nation One Election is also designed to make India a centralised, unitary polity.

It is good that the Delhi and Punjab chief ministers, Arvind Kejriwal and Bhagwant Singh Mann, former chief minister Farooq Abdullah and various leaders of the opposition parties, who are part of the INDIA bloc supported and participated in the sit-in. The Tamil Nadu chief minister sent a video message of support. In contrast, the Congress leadership of Kerala took a negative position when approached to join the sit-in in Delhi.

In the coming days, the fight for states’ rights and defence of federalism should become the rallying cry of the opposition. (IPA Service)

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Industry leaders and leading tax consultants have expressed surprise over non-extension of the sunset date of the concessional tax rate of 15% on new manufacturing units beyond March 31, 2024 in the interim Budget, as this may discourage fresh private investments, say experts.

“Considering the continuing need to incentivise manufacturing in India and the support extended to manufacturing in specified sectors by way of production-linked incentives (PLI), it is surprising that the lower tax rate of 15% has not been extended,” said Sudhir Kapadia, Partner, Tax & Regulatory Services, EY India.

As per the current rules, the concessional corporate tax rate, first introduced in 2019, and extended by one year in the FY24 Budget, can be availed by firms setting up new manufacturing units provided they commence operations by March 31, 2024.

But since the pandemic related disruptions and global slowdown hindered many potential investors from setting up new plants and making full use of the tax incentive, industry leaders urged the government to grant an extension to the sunset date for at least one-more year.

It also holds significance as the government’s ability to pump-prime the economy with its own capital expenditure is limited. This can be seen from the Centre’s capex target for FY25, which is at Rs 11.1 trillion, up 16.9% from FY 24 revised estimate of Rs 9.5 trillion. The projected growth for FY25 is the lowest in five years.

“It needs to be borne in mind that India is competing with much older jurisdictions in attracting investments in the manufacturing sector and to significantly increase FDI (foreign direct investment), the government would do well to actually consider extending the lower tax rate for a longer period to fully realise the benefits of an increased manufacturing base in India,” EY’s Kapadia said.

Recent data released by the commerce ministry showed that foreign direct investment (FDI) equity inflow in the manufacturing sector between 2014-22 has increased sharply by 57% as compared to the previous eight years 2006-14. This can partly be attributed to 15% corporate tax introduction in 2019, say experts.

Although some experts believe that the government may reconsider its position in the full Budget, set to be unveiled in July; but if it doesn’t happen, then from April the new manufacturing units will have to pay 22% corporate tax.

Pallavi Singh Marwah, Senior VP at Super Plastronics had earlier told FE that a concessional corporate tax rate will encourage domestic and foreign companies to set up manufacturing units in India, as it eases the burden for the initial years when one is trying to set up the business and be price competitive.

“This will also encourage companies to bring innovative and technical know-how into India which will lead to improved productivity and quality as well as promote the ‘Make in India’ initiative,” she said.

The provision for 15% corporate tax for new investment was introduced earlier by the Government to kick-start manufacturing and to boost further investment. This clause has a sunset period understandably so that manufacturing units are set up sooner than later. The clause has served it’s purpose and it’s beneficial for companies to move towards a stable corporate tax regime, said B Thiagarajan, managing director, Blue Star.

Source: The Financial Express

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By Dr. Gyan Pathak

There has been suspicion of rigging elections by BJP government led by PM Narendra Modi, which just gained credence the way mayoral election in the Union Territory of Chandigarh was finally conducted and result declared on January 30. Votes polled for INDIA bloc’s candidates were invalidated and BJP’s candidate declared winner. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has allowing urgent listing of a plea challenging it over alleged tampering of ballot paper and other violations of the very election process.

It is a significant development on the eve of Lok Sabha general election 2024, especially only one day after the Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge warned of ‘last election’ if Narendra Modi becomes PM again. Modi government has already got a legislation passed in the Parliament of India regarding appointment of Election Commissioners of India, that kicked out Chief Justice of India from the appointment Committee, established executive’s dominance in matter of appointment, and made two Election Commissioners unprotected from removal.

All these have been done in a backdrop of EVM concerns. A research work found evidence of several irregularities in the pattern of the General Election 2019 suggesting either the election results underwent electoral manipulation or precise control of the ruling establishment under PM Narendra Modi. EVM concerns have cropped up again because the older Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are still in use in large number, new EVMs that come with Voter Verifiable Audit Trial (VVPAT) paper record are not comprehensive enough, all the VVPATs are not counted to match the actual votes polled.

INDIA alliance has passed a resolution expressing doubts on the integrity of the functioning of EVMs and demanded VVPAT slips be handed over to voters and its 100 per cent counting done later, so that people know their votes were not manipulated. Congress on behalf of INDIA bloc has sought appointment with the Election Commission of India, but its leaders alleged that ECI is not responding to their request.

Now come to Chandigarh, which is a Union Territory, directly under the Union Government led by PM Modi. The officials of Chandigarh Administration who were responsible for conducting the mayoral election were of Chandigarh (UT) cadre. The officials have first postponed the mayoral election scheduled on January 18 citing “law and order issues.”

One can recall, the Delhi mayoral election of the last year, which was postponed several times, because the BJP knew that they did not have enough votes to have their own mayor. Courts have to interfere and only then elections were held in which AAP candidate ultimately defeated the BJP candidate. It should also be noted that there are several states where BJP did not win the elections but manipulated to form their government and the winning parties were kept or pushed out of power, in utter disregard of the philosophy that winners should be allowed to govern. More than half a dozen governments were toppled in the last 10 years.

When the Chandigarh Administration postponed the mayoral election scheduled on January 18, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had to intervene and direct the Chandigarh Administration to conduct the poll and to ensure that “no ruckus takes place in or around the Municipal Corporation Office prior to or during or after the election process.” It was only after the direction election was scheduled again for January 30.

The mayoral election was to be held through ballot paper. One can just see how a conspiracy was hatched. The ballot papers have marks and spots. Presiding Officer Anil Masih, while denying the charges that he has tampered the ballots, has admitted that ballots have marks and spots. He said that members of AAP and Congress had requested the replacement of 11 ballots due to marks and spots.

One can see how rules are manipulated. A vote caste with marks and spots other than the mark-of-vote makes a ballot paper invalidated. Why should then a voter be supplied with invalid ballot paper in the first place? It was a shrewd move to supply invalid ballots when everybody knew that INDIA alliance has required number to have their own mayor. It was just a taking chances, if some of the voters just voted without first inspecting the very invalid ballots supplied to them. Where there were only 36 votes to be cast, 11 ballots were requested to be replaced is a very high incidence of supplying ballots with marks and spots that would enable officials to invalidate the votes cast.

Out of 36 total votes cast, 20 were in favour of INDIA bloc’s candidate, and 16 were in favour of BJP’s candidate. Obviously, without invalidating to votes cast in favour of INDIA bloc’s candidate there was no way of declaring BJP’s candidate winner.

Video evidence has surfaced that shows the presiding officer writing something on ballot papers, an act for which the presiding officer has no right. Thus, it amounted to tampering the ballot. Thereafter, the presiding officer declared 8 votes cast in favour of INDIA bloc’s invalid on account of other than mark-of-vote mark or spot. It reduced the votes in favour of INDIA bloc from actual 20 to only 12. AAP and Congress people then objected to it but presiding official left the scene after declaring BJP candidate winner who has bagged 16 votes.

AAP has said in their petition filed in the Punjab and Haryana High court that election was conducted in violation of its previous order. Petitioner said that the Presiding Officer “in most flimsy manner” declared that he did not want any assistance from the members nominated by the parties contesting the election and he will count the vote himself. It was also submitted that despite objections by the political party, the prescribed authority, ie Deputy Commissioner and Secretary of the House, did not interfere. The plea mentions that the two are officers of Haryana Cadre duly ruled by the BJP.

It was further submitted that there were three baskets in front of the Presiding Officer, one for the candidate of AAP, the other for the candidate of BJP, and the third for invalid votes. It is clear from the videography also that the Presiding Officer shuffled the casted votes from one basket to another basket only with a view to create a confusion during which he completely compromised the election process by forgery and tampering.”

Petitioner has sought setting aside the process of election “as the same is a result of complete fraud and forgery laid upon the democratic process,” and holding of fresh elections in a free and fair manner under the supervision of a retired High Court Judge.

The division bench comprised of Justice Sudhir Singh and Justice Harsh Bunger has issued notice to the Chandigarh Administration and Municipal Corporation on January 31, 2024 granting them three weeks’ time to respond but has refused to stay the election result.

The current episode of mayoral election in Chandigarh is a serious matter for the country in the given backdrop of general suspicions on Modi government in conducting free and fair election, both through legal and illegal strategies, opposition manpower and money powered impaired, and their campaign disrupted through Central agencies in the name of taking legal actions such as raids, seizures, arrests, and summon. All of these have been accelerated as we have been reaching closer to the General election 2024. In this process, free and fair election is the suspect. (IPA Service)

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By P. Sudhir

The consecration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya on January 22 will symbolise the merger of State and religion under the rubric of Hindutva. Central to the `Pran Pratishtha’ of the idol of Lord Ram will be the role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, underlining the fact that this is a State-sponsored event.

The Ayodhya ceremony is to proclaim Hindutva as the State ideology. Both in the run-up to the consecration and the mobilisation of pilgrims to Ayodhya, there is the intertwining of the efforts of the State and the Sangh Parivar.

The timing of the Ayodhya event has obviously been decided with a view to make the maximum gains for the BJP in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections which are due in April/May. From the nationwide observance in homes and temples on January 22, the plan is to bring pilgrims and supporters from every state and parliamentary constituency to visit Ayodhya, a process which will go on till the end of March.

But there is a deeper purpose to the entire project of the Ram temple and the reconstruction of Ayodhya town. It is to symbolise the convergence of Hindutva and state power. The identification of Narendra Modi as prime minister and the progenitor of Ram Rajya is now complete, with his leading role in the consecration of the Ram temple. He is the chosen one of god and the people. Modi has himself stated, “God has made me an instrument to represent all the people of India during the consecration”. This is the divine right to rule, Hindutva style.

The Ram temple, nation and State have all been morphed together. A constant theme harped on by Prime Minister Modi is that the temple is a symbol of national unity and national sentiment. This is an assertion of Hindutva nationalism.

The CPI(M) was the first national political party to decline the invitation extended to its general secretary to attend the January 22 ceremony at Ayodhya. The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) had stated that: “It is most unfortunate that the BJP and RSS have converted a religious ceremony into a State sponsored event directly involving the prime minister, the UP chief minister and other government functionaries. A fundamental principle of governance in India as reiterated by the Supreme Court is that the State in India, under the constitution should have no religious affiliation. This is being violated by the ruling regime in the organisation of the event.”

This clear stand of the CPI(M) had an impact on the attitude of the entire secular opposition to the event. Consequently, no leader of any of the major secular opposition parties is attending the event. The running theme in declining the invitation by these parties is that it has been made into a political event.

The effort of the BJP-RSS and their faithful servitors in the corporate media to brand the opposition parties as anti-Hindu has not found much purchase among the people. For one, people can see how the BJP, as the ruling party, is blatantly seeking to milk the devotees’ faith for petty political gains. But the main reason why the charge of `anti-Hindu’ will not stick is because the four Shankaracharyas of the main Hindu Peeths – Puri Govardhana Peeth, Jyotir Math, Dwarka Sharda Peeth and Sringeri Sharda Peeth – have made known their intention not to participate in the ceremony at Ayodhya on January 22.

The Shankaracharyas of Puri and Jyotir Math have made public statements expressing their disapproval of the way the consecration is being undertaken either by ignoring the Shastras or because the construction of the temple is incomplete. The Puri Shankaracharya was more explicit in questioning the role of the prime minister in a religious ceremony.

There can be a deeper underlying reason for the reservations expressed by the Shankaracharyas. The RSS and its various outfits like the Vishva Hindu Parishad have been working to re-mould Hinduism into a centralised religious order, what Romila Thapar termed as “syndicated Hinduism”. This goes against the very nature of Hinduism which is a vast ocean of diverse beliefs, practices and deities. The political project of Hindutva is antithetical to this multi-plural Hinduism.

The edifice of the new Hindutva State is being constructed with the full backing and collaboration of big business in India. The corporate sector is being represented at Ayodhya by a vertible who’s who of big business, starting from Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani.

There are some well-meaning secular personalities who feel that acquiescing in the State-sponsored Ram temple event would bring about a closure to the protracted and divisive conflict emanating from the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute. They are mistaken. Already the Hindutva outfits have begun the legal battle to open up the disputes in Kashi and Mathura. With a degree of judicial connivance, the matter which was conclusively closed by the Places of Worship Act, 1991 has now been re-opened with the same ruse of archaeological surveys to establish what existed before, under the mosques in Varanasi and Mathura.

There is still an insufficient realisation of the long game being played by the RSS and the Hindutva forces, which is to eventually convert the Indian republic into an official Hindutva republic. That is why the ongoing project of merging religion and State for political purposes must be opposed and met with a firm and principled defence of secularism. (IPA Service)

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NEW DELHI: India is reviewing the entire gamut of withholding tax provisions in line with the country’s overall thrust to simplify the tax structure to make it easier for businesses and reduce disputes.

There are several tax deducted at source (TDS) provisions with different thresholds and multiple rates. This has created a TDS maze that leads to frequent disputes as well as the blocking of working capital at businesses.

“There is a need to simplify the regime in view of the complexities that have crept in over time,” said a government official, explaining the need for the review.

The cleanup of the withholding tax regime could take place in the February 1 interim budget if the review is completed in time.

There are about 33 sections in the Income Tax Act dealing with TDS rates that range from 0.1% to 30%.

For example, before 2020, fees for technical services (FTS) and fees for professional services (FPS) were subject to 10% TDS. The rate was reduced to 2% for FTS. This has led to classification issues between FTS and FPS, sparking litigation.

These issues have been flagged by industry over past few years.

“Whilst in the pre-digital era of tax administration there was some merit in this approach, in current times, some of these elevated rates have put undue working capital pressure, especially on MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) besides increasing compliance burden,” said EY senior partner Sudhir Kapadia.

With the digitisation of payments and advanced data analytics available with the tax department, there is considerable merit in moving toward lower TDS rates of 1-5% across fewer categories, Kapadia said. The tracking of transactions can still be achieved without putting undue pressure on compliance and working capital, he said.

The concept of TDS was introduced to collect tax from the income source. The idea was to widen the tax base as TDS provisions help the government capture additional information, helping to plug revenue leakage. Over the years, the TDS and TCS (tax collected at source) net has widened, and rates have also risen.

Under TDS, a person liable to make a payment of a specified nature to another person will deduct tax at source and remit this into the central government’s account. The person from whom income tax has been deducted at source is entitled to get credit for the amount and can adjust it against final tax liability.

A higher TDS rate means greater outgo at the time of receiving income, which increases the working capital requirement as credit for the deduction can only be claimed later.

Source: The Economic Times

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By P. Sudhir

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have announced that the military operations in Gaza will continue throughout 2024. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has repeatedly stated that the war in Gaza will continue till the Hamas is totally finished. He has also stated that Israel will control the Gaza border with Egypt which would mean Israel’s de facto control over the whole of the Gaza strip.

After three months of air, ground and naval operations in the Gaza strip, the Israeli armed forces have not still been able to eliminate Hamas or end the resistance put up by Hamas fighters. The reality is that military force will not be able to finish off the Hamas. Even if militarily defeated, it will resurface in some form or the other.

The real aim of Israel’s never-ending war is to ensure the ethnic cleansing of Gaza by making this narrow strip of land uninhabitable; to kill, starve and force out the Palestinian people out of Gaza. For the Palestinian people, the Nakba (catastrophe) which began in 1948 is still going on.

Since October 7, Israelis have dropped approximately 29,000 bombs on Gaza (till the third week of December). Compare this to the US bombing in Iraq, where 3,678 bombs were dropped between 2004 and 2010. 85 per cent of the population have been displaced from their homes and according to a World Bank publication of December 12, 77 per cent of healthcare facilities, 72 per cent of public buildings including parks, courts and libraries, 68 per cent of communication infrastructure and almost the entire industrial zone in Gaza were destroyed due to the Israeli aggression.

The genocidal attack has resulted in over 22,000 deaths in the last 88 days, which works out to roughly 250 deaths every day and the mind-numbing figure of approximately 90 children daily.

So the world is witnessing a genocidal massacre perpetrated by Israel’s armed forces with the declared intention of removing the Palestinian population from Gaza. This is not an exaggerated claim. Ministers in the far-right government have made public declarations about this. The Jewish extremist national security minister, Ben-Gvir, and finance minister Smotrich, have called for the migration of Palestinian civilians as a solution to the conflict. According to Ben-Gvir, the war presents an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza”, While this was echoed by Smotrich, who also talked about “encouraging the voluntary migration of Gaza’s residents” and predicted that “Israel will permanently control the territory of the Gaza strip including through the establishment of settlements”, there are discussions in the Israeli media about how North Sinai (in adjoining Egypt) would be an ideal place for the Palestinians to take refuge in.

The far-right government of Netanyahu is exploiting the October 7 Hamas attack to conduct an extensive anti-Palestinian drive. This is evident from the way the attacks on the Palestinian people have been stepped up in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In raids by the Israeli army and attack by settlers, over 300 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank. Over 4,700 have been arrested and detained. Palestinian farmers are being stopped from conducting agricultural operations, prevented from harvesting their olive trees and dispossessed of their lands and houses. With illegal settlements containing over 700,000 settlers dotted across the West Bank, the Palestinian people are being forced to live in apartheid-style bantustans.

Israel is able to get away with this State-sponsored genocide and ethnic cleansing because it has the full backing of US imperialism. Despite 150 countries voting in the UN General Assembly for an immediate ceasefire, there has been no movement in this direction because the United States has vetoed all such resolutions in the Security Council. The United States goes on hypocritically about minimising civilian casualties in Gaza, while providing Israel with lethal weapons and ammunition to carry out the mass killings.

After the 106 million dollar aid package for Israel and Ukraine got stalled in the US Congress, the Biden administration has twice in the month of December, approved emergency weapon sales to Israel. The first time it approved the sale of 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition worth more than 106 million dollars. This was followed by a second emergency sale of 147.5 million dollar sale of equipment – fuses, charges and primers – that are needed to make the 150 mm shells that Israel has already purchased function. It is these shells that are being used to kill women, children and health workers who are sheltering in UN-run schools and around hospitals. The United States is fully complicit in the genocidal massacre in Gaza.

The process of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians cannot be understood unless the link between Israel and US imperialism is grasped. Israel, as a settler-colonial State, has existed and got strengthened over the decades because of the full-fledged backing of US imperialism; no other State has been financially supported and equipped with arms by the United States to such an extent as Israel. It is the intervention of the United States that led the Arab countries, one after the other, beginning with Egypt to make peace and collaborate with Israel by betraying the Palestinian cause.

The United States had propped up the reactionary kingdoms and sheikhs to counter the secular Arab nationalist forces and facilitate diplomatic relations with Israel, the latest being the Abraham Accords. But though the Palestinian people were let down by the rulers of the Arab countries, the Arab masses have never abandoned their support and solidarity for Palestine. The current upsurge of mass support for the people of Gaza in the entire region shows that whatever the US-Israeli axis do, the struggle of the Palestinian people can never be isolated and suppressed. With the escalating clashes between the Israeli forces and the Hezbollah in the Lebanon border and the Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, all indicators are of a widening regional conflict, the results of which may upset the existing geo-political balance of forces. (IPA Service)

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NEW DELHI: The plans to increase buoyancy in tax collections, widening the tax base and increasing the compliance by taxpayers seem to have been aided by the new income tax (IT) regime in the current financial year. However, experts feel a few more tweaks in the tax rates in the forthcoming interim Budget could make the exemption-free regime more attractive.

So far, more than 80 million income tax returns (ITRs) have been filed for assessment year (AY) 2023-24, against 75.2 million filed in AY 2022-23. Personal income tax collections have also seen a robust annual growth of 29.4% in April-November. These were touted as a “milestone” by the I-T department on ‘X’ on December 29.

In fact, the growth rate in PIT collections is the highest in at least 10 years – barring FY22, which was on a low base, as income tax collections had contracted more than 12% in April-November FY21, the pandemic year.

After the new tax regime was sweetened in the Budget for 2023-24, revenue secretary Sanjay Malhotra estimated that around 50% of the taxpayers would adopt the new regime. The earlier version of the exemption-less regime, launched in XX, didn’t get much traction among the taxpayers. This was because the tax slabs in the exemption-less regime weren’t attractive after taking into consideration the benefit of various deductions and exemptions available under the old tax regime.

And given the data that has now been compiled by the department for AY 2023-24, official sources say more than 60% of the taxpayers have adopted the new income tax regime, which is now the “default regime”. “Over 50 million ITRs have been filed under the new tax regime,” an official told FE.

The new tax regime offers lower income tax rates with a threshold of Rs 15,00,000 for the highest tax rate as compared to the old regime where the threshold for highest tax rate was Rs 10,00,000. The basic exemption under this regime has also been increased to Rs 3,00,000 from Rs 2,50,000.

Further, the rebate under the new tax regime has been increased to Rs 7,00,000 from Rs 5,00,000 before and the benefit of standard deduction of Rs 50,000 has also been extended to the salaried class and the pensioners including family pensioners. Accordingly, a salaried individual earning a gross income of Rs 7,00,000 would not be required to pay any taxes even if no investments are made under Section 80C.

Moreover, high networth individuals (HNIs) earning more than Rs 5 crore would prefer the new regime as the maximum marginal tax rate has dropped from 42.74% to 39% due to changes made in the rate of surcharge. The surcharge rate on income over Rs 5 crore was slashed to 25% from 37% in the new regime.

Sudhir Kapadia, partner-tax and regulatory services, EY said: “In FY20, when the exemption-less regime was implemented, deductions were still applicable, and the slab rates without deductions lacked appeal. Consequently, while low-income earners reaped benefits under the FY20 scheme, the majority of middle-income and high-income earners did not experience significant advantages.”

However, experts say that while the changes in the new regime have made it more lucrative for taxpayers, the old regime still has its advantages like availability of deduction for House Rent Allowance (HRA), Leave Travel Allowance (LTA), and 80C deduction.

“Therefore to make the new regime more attractive, the government may consider reducing the highest tax rate from 30% to 25% and increasing the threshold limit for the highest tax rate from Rs 15,00,000 to Rs 20,00,000,” said Divya Baweja, Partner, Deloitte India.

“Further, the limit of the standard deduction and basic exemption limit may also be increased. Allowing the set-off for House Property Loss could provide further boost to taxpayers towards the new regime,” Baweja said. Even though the aforementioned changes may simplify the tax structure and attract more taxpayers, it’s unlikely the government would introduce any more changes, given its the interim Budget before the general elections in 2024.

Source: The Financial Express

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By P. Sudhir

The year 2023 ends with the dark shadow of the genocidal massacre of Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli war-machine. Nearly three months of Israel’s brutal aggression has led to (till December 26) 20,915 people killed in Gaza, of which more than 8,000 are children; another 53,918 have been wounded and an unaccounted number of people are still buried in the debris of bombed buildings.

Israel’s war on the Palestinians is fully backed by the USA which has sent more lethal arms and equipment to Israel since the start of the conflict on October 7. The US has been blocking any call for an immediate ceasefire by vetoing such resolutions in the United Nations Security Council.

While the US administration’s staunch support for Israel is not a surprise, what is new, as far as India is concerned, is the Modi government’s big shift in favour of Israel declaring full support for Israel’s actions.  India went to the extent of refusing to support a resolution in the UN General Assembly in October calling for a ceasefire. It is only at the second General Assembly vote in December on a resolution calling for ceasefire that India voted for it reluctantly. Not doing so would have isolated India, as every other country in Asia voted for the ceasefire.

2023 marked the final year of the Modi government’s second term in office.  It has been yet another year which has seen the closing in of the walls for Indian democracy, secularism and federalism.  The shifting of parliament to a new building has symbolised its new denigrated status. The last session of Parliament this year saw 146 Opposition MPs, underlining the Modi government’s intent to hollow out the essence of parliamentary democracy.

The desecularisation of the Indian State has proceeded apace. With judicial connivance, the question of original religious sites at Kashi and Mathura are being reopened and examined.  The New Year will begin with the consecration of the Ram temple at Ayodhya which has been made into a State-sponsored spectacle.

In BJP-ruled states, the minorities are being consigned to the status of second class citizens with restrictions on their livelihood like the meat-trade and periodic attacks and lynchings of those accused of transporting cows or beef.   The bulldozer has become a symbol of vigilante action against Muslims.

Manipur witnessed the worst ethnic clashes from the month of May. Even after seven months, the ethnic divide between the Meitis and Kukis continues with security forces manning the buffer zone between the Valley and hill areas.  The BJP chief minister is singularly responsible for this conflagration because of his partisan politics. The Centre has failed to bring about a political settlement through negotiations with all sides. Manipur is a standing testimony to the havoc majoritarian politics can play in a sensitive ethnic region.

Federalism came under severe attack in 2023.  Governors of opposition-ruled states became more aggressive in interfering in the affairs of the state governments and in denying the rights of state legislatures to pass laws.  The Supreme Court judgment on the abrogation of Article 370 and the court’s refusal to adjudicate on the use of Article 3 of the constitution to dismantle the state of Jammu and Kashmir and create two union territories has given the stamp of judicial legitimacy to this gross violation of the federal principle.

The Modi government goes on claiming that India is the fastest growing economy in the world citing the GDP growth figures. But, in terms of GDP per capita, India was ranked the lowest among the G20 countries with 2600 dollars in 2023. Further, whatever growth was registered has not translated into increased employment. As per the latest CMIE data, the unemployment rate in October this year was 10.05, the highest level in the past 21 months, while youth unemployment was 23.22 percent.

Prices of essential commodities, particularly food items, continue to rise imposing a big burden on the poorest sections of the people. With real wages on the decline, rising prices and soaring unemployment, India’s ranking in the global hunger index plummeted down to 111 out of 125 countries.

The corporate-communal nexus was prominently exemplified in 2023. The Hindenburg Research company’s exposure of the Adani group’s corporate fraud and stock manipulation became international news. But the Modi government stubbornly shielded Gautam Adani and refused to carry out a serious investigation of its favourite capitalist. An attack on Adani was seen as an attack on India under the Hindutva dispensation. As a result of the Modi government’s benevolence to the big capitalists, income and wealth inequalities reached new heights.  As per the Oxfam Report released in January 2023, the richest 1 per cent own more than 40 per cent of the wealth of the country, while the bottom half of the population together share just 3 per cent of wealth.

2023 also saw the sharpening of the instruments of repression and the widespread use of central agencies to target the opposition. The raids and arrests by the Enforcement Directorate, Central Bureau of Investigation and Income Tax Department have become cynical weapons in the hands of the ruling party.

At the fag-end of the winter session of parliament, without the opposition being present, three new criminal law bills were adopted. This was supposed to be doing away with the legacy of colonialism whereas, in fact, it was a form of re-colonialisation. There are many provisions in the new criminal laws which do away with basic safeguards of citizens and usher in a police state.

The working class and peasantry have been struggling against the communal-corporate regime.  For the first time, the Central Trade Unions and the Samyukta Kisan Morcha representing the working class and kisan movements held a joint convention in September and gave a united call for a three-day mahapadav in November. This joint protest action was preceded by a number of struggles of different sections of workers and peasants in various parts of the country.  The year saw more sections of the working people coming out against the neo-liberal policies of the BJP government.

The latter half of 2023 saw the opposition parties coming together to form the INDIA grouping consisting of 28 parties. The aim of the opposition combine is to put up a united fight against the BJP in the general elections to be held in April-May, 2024. This will be a fight to defend democracy, secularism and federalism – all basic features of the Constitution. New Year 2024 will witness this great battle which will determine India’s future. (IPA Service)

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By Arun Kumar Shrivastav

Maharashtra boasts a seemingly healthy tiger population, but the numbers hide a troubling reality: a significant number of these magnificent creatures are dying, with a third of the deaths attributed to unnatural causes. Since 2018, Maharashtra has lost 151 tigers. Poaching and electrocution were responsible for 42 tiger deaths. Drowning incidents and rail/road accidents killed another 16. Tiger habitats should be kept free of road/rail intrusions.

As of October 2023, Maharashtra recorded 41 tiger deaths, including from accidents and poisoning. In 2022, the toll was 29, with 18 dying from natural causes, four to accidents, four to electrocution, and three to poaching. The 2022 ‘Tiger Census’ revealed Maharashtra had an estimated 444 tigers in its six tiger reserves: TadobaAndhari, Pench, NavegaonNagzira, Bor, Melghat, and Sahyadri.

Poaching remains the most serious threat to tigers. And poacher gangs have become increasingly brazen. Only enhanced surveillance and protection in buffer areas, besides translocation corridors to safeguard dispersing tigers during their territorial expansion, will help fight poachers.

Some tigers inadvertently become victims of electrified fences which farmers erect to protect their crops from herbivores. The story is that farmers often steal power to electrify farm fences. They do this electrification themselves or by untested hands, shoddy unsafe work, indeed, for which tigers pay the price with their precious lives.

Electrocuting tigers is also the favoured method of poachers, who also use live traps to ensnare tigers. Tigers keep falling victim to electrocution and illegal hunting posing a significant threat to wildlife conservation efforts. In 2011, the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) introduced anti-snare walks (ASWs) to detect and remove snares in and around wildlife protected areas.

At a recent orientation training conducted by WTI for the forest and electricity department officials, SM Dathrak, the Range Forest Officer of North Deori, stressed the importance of ASWs. There’s the recent incident of the deaths of three leopards – a mother and two cubs – from electrocution, which prompted residents to be more careful when erecting electrified fencing.

In the Vidharba region of Central India, which is a critical corridor for tiger movement but faces high anthropogenic pressure, tigers and other wildlife are at risk due to encounters with humans. In the past decade, the region has seen tiger and leopard deaths from snares and traps, along with electrocution from live wires.

The WTI conducted orientation workshops across eight Territorial Divisions of the Nagzira-Navegaon Tiger Reserve (NNTR) ranges. These workshops involved forest officials and collaboration with Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) officials to reduce electrocution and snaring in the landscape. The focus extended beyond core areas to buffer zones where tigers frequently roam.

Practical sessions included forest officials walking along electric lines and forest-agriculture boundaries to identify snaring incidents and record ASW tracks and data using an Anti-Snare Walk mobile application. Presentations covered wildlife crime in India, the Wildlife (Protection) Act, and documentation of evidence during encounters.

Efforts like these demonstrate a commitment to safeguarding tigers and other wildlife in Maharashtra, where conservationists, government agencies, and local communities work together to protect these majestic creatures and their habitats.

As per media reports, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Maharashtra’s Minister for Forests, emphasizes the importance of launching public awareness programs to inform locals about tiger presence. In the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, the forest department employs AI-based e-surveillance to capture thermal images of tigers and alert local villagers. Mungantiwar underscores the priority of reducing tiger electrocution to zero. A senior forest department official acknowledges that tiger deaths in Maharashtra are linked to population growth. He asserts that unnatural deaths are a consequence of saturation in tiger landscapes and expanding urbanization, leading to increased man-animal conflicts. Many of Maharashtra’s tigers reside in landscapes with human settlements, mining activities, and other human interventions. (IPA Service)

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By P. Sudhir

Governors in Opposition-ruled states are becoming tools for the ruling party at the Centre to advance its political agenda and to create difficulties for the concerned state government for implementing its welfare programmes and development schemes.

The role of Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan is particularly disruptive and obnoxious.  He had sat on eight bills passed by the state legislature without giving assent or returning the bills to the assembly for reconsideration; two of these bills were lying with him for two years.  The Supreme Court made it clear in a petition filed by the Punjab state government against the Punjab Governor sitting upon bills passed by the assembly that the Governor had no right to do so.

Further, when the court took up the petition filed by the Kerala Government regarding a similar matter, the court directed the secretary of the Raj Bhawan to file a report. It was only then that the Governor gave his assent to one of the bills while referring seven of them to the President of India for consideration.

This was a devious move as under Article 300 of the Constitution, only certain bills can be referred to the President.  By referring these bills to the President, they have been indefinitely shelved as there is no time-frame prescribed in the Constitution for the disposal of such matters.

Apart from obstructing the legislative making powers of the assembly, Governor Khan has now embarked upon the brazen act of filling up university decision-making bodies with RSS-BJP personnel.  As Chancellor of the state universities, the Governor has to fill a certain number of nominated seats in the Senates of the universities.

In the case of Kerala University, of the 23 nominated members, 17 are nominated by the Chancellor and six by the state government. The 17 nominated seats include two High School head teachers, four meritorious students and representatives of the research institutions, cultural bodies, media and so on.

Normally, the nomination proposals are forwarded by the university and the Chancellor approves the list so forwarded. This is particularly so with regard to the nomination of students, who are identified by the university on their merit.

However, the governor, in this instance as the Chancellor, has flouted all conventions and democratic norms. Rejecting the names proposed by the university, he has nominated persons belonging to the Sangh Parivar for all the Senate seats, except two. Among those nominated by the Governor are teachers who are office-bearers of the RSS adhyapaka parishad.

In the journalists, sports, lawyers and cultural affairs categories also, RSS or BJP men and women have been selected.  Worst of all, the four students proposed by the university and selected on merit in the Humanities, Science, Arts and Sports categories have been replaced by four students who are all members of the ABVP.

The same pattern of nominations was made to the Calicut University Senate, too. This brazen attempt at saffronisation of higher educational institutions in Kerala has met with strong protests by the Students’ Federation of India, youth and teachers organisations and the Left Democratic Front. SFI has launched a powerful protest movement in the colleges and universities.

Already the High Court has stayed the selection of the four ABVP students to the senate. The Governor has taken umbrage at the student protests and has resorted to provocative behaviour to try and create a confrontation. He announced a visit to Calicut University to attend a function by an RSS-sponsored trust. He decided to stay in the university guesthouse in the campus instead of the government guesthouse in the city.

He has been abusing student protestors as criminals sent at the behest of the Chief Minister. After a meeting with BJP leaders at the guesthouse, he issued a press statement through the Raj Bhawan, in which he stated that this is “the beginning of the collapse of the constitutional machinery in the state”.   A few days earlier, he had talked about declaring a financial emergency in the state.

While the Students’ Federation of India and other democratic organisations are carrying on a sustained struggle against the communalisation of higher education by the Governor, the stand of the Congress and its student organisation is to be strongly deplored.  The Kerala Students Union and the Congress party have not even issued a statement condemning the Governor’s actions. The Congress’s blind anti-Marxist stance makes them overlook the threat to higher education posed by the infiltration of RSS personnel into higher education.

The behaviour of Governor Arif Mohammed Khan has broken all norms of good conduct expected from a person holding the constitutional post of the Governor. The threats and insults that he has levelled against the Chief Minister will not be tolerated by the people of Kerala. The BJP is sadly mistaken, if it thinks that it can use the Governor’s actions, to advance its influence in the state.  (IPA Service)

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The Maharashtra government intends to implement the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) before the state elections in 2024, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, who also holds the finance portfolio, has told the Legislative Council of the assembly.

The statement comes amid state government officials calling for yet another protest to demand implementation of OPS.

Pawar, during the Winter Session, said: “The state government is very positive about the Old Pension Scheme. Post Lok Sabha elections, we have six months for the state assembly election. Before that, we will take a decision on the scheme.”

In a post on microblogging website X, the deputy CM said: “The State Govt had formed a 3 member committee to study this issue. This committee consists of senior bureaucrats like Subodh Kumar, KP Bakshi & Sudhir Shrivastav who had submitted their report to the state Govt. Also, we are getting more information from other states who have already implemented the Old Pension Scheme.”

A huge gathering was held at Yashvant stadium in Nagpur city on Tuesday at the behest of teachers and non-teaching staff on state government payroll and state government employee unions to demand the old scheme.

Shiv Sena UBT chief Uddhav Thackeray, who was in Nagpur for the past two days, also visited Yashwant stadium and extended his support to the protesters. Interacting with the gathering, he said: “If I were the chief minister, this situation would have never arrived.”

The RBI, in its report released on December 11, cautioned against the return to the Old Pension Scheme by certain states, stating it would pose a substantial financial burden and impede their ability to undertake growth-oriented capital expenditures.

States like Rajasthan, Punjab and Chhattisgarh have already reinstated the scheme and now there are some reports which suggest that Karnataka is also planning to bring it back.

With inputs from News18

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By P. Sudhir

The results of the five state assembly elections are striking for the way the BJP has won in the three heartland states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

A major victory is the coming back to power in Madhya Pradesh, a state where it has ruled for two decades, except for a fifteen-month break when the Congress was in power. The Shivraj Chouhan government has not only staved off any anti-incumbency but won with a bigger vote share (48.55 per cent), which is nearly 8 per cent more than what the Congress polled.

The BJP could unseat the Congress governments in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. In Chhattisgarh, where the BJP had been routed in the last elections, despite all exit polls predicting a Congress victory, the BJP could defeat the Congress comfortably getting 54 out of 90 seats and increasing its vote share by 13.3 per cent over the previous election.

In Rajasthan, where the Ashok Gehlot government had ushered in a number of significant welfare schemes and the governance was considered better than in Chhattisgarh, the BJP was able to outmaneouvre the Congress and get 115 of the 199 seats which went to the polls.

How to account for this BJP victory and the Congress debacle? Various factors are being attributed by political analysts for these results. However, one singular fact must be seen as central, which is that in all the three states there now exists a consolidated Hindutva influenced bloc of voters. That the BJP had succeeded in creating an overarching pan-Hindu identity was something which was noted at the time of the 2019 parliament election. This is all the more so in northern and western India.

The basic failure of the Congress has been its inability to confront this reality and work out an ideological platform and a political narrative which can take on and overcome this Hindutva ideological domination. Rahul Gandhi, responding to the election results, stated that, “The battle of ideology will continue”. But this is precisely the problem. Where has there been an ideological battle waged by the Congress against Hindutva?

On the contrary, there has been a pandering to Hindutva sentiments. The chief practitioner of this soft Hindutva has been none other than Kamal Nath, the PCC chief and the former chief minister who led the Congress’s electoral fight in Madhya Pradesh. It is Kamal Nath, who has been continuously imitating the Hindutva plank and even sought to outcompete the RSS-BJP in patronising chauvinist babas and swamis. Kamal Nath had called for the recitation of Hanuman chalisa in all Congress offices on the day the foundation of the Ram temple was laid at Ayodhya in August 2019. More recently, he presided over the `merger’ of the Bajrang Sena with the Congress, an organisation whose leader proclaimed the need for the creation of a Hindu Rashtra. In a state where the RSS has been working systematically in all areas and sections of society to spread the Hindutva ideology, the stance adopted by the Congress has only further strengthened the hold of Hindutva on substantial sections of the people.

In the case of Chhattisgarh too, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel took to flaunting his Hindu religious identity and implementing government programmes like building the Ram Van Gaman Path. As a result of this approach, both in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the RSS and other Hindutva outfits had a free run in communalising sections of society and targeting minorities.

The results show that the BJP has made big gains in the tribal reserved seats of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. In the 2018 elections, the BJP had won only 19 of the 76 ST seats. This has increased to 44. The BJP won 17 of 29 ST seats in Chhattisgarh and 27 of 47 in Madhya Pradesh. One of the reasons for the BJP’s gains in the tribal areas is the continuous process of `Hinduisation” of adivasis being taken up by RSS outfits like the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram. Further, there were organised attacks on Christian adivasis in some areas of Chhattisgarh. The Baghel government did virtually nothing to protect the rights of the Christian adivasis.

Many observers have noted that the Congress’s promise of a caste census did not have much impact among the OBCs in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. This was to be expected given the fact that in both these states, OBC-based politics and political parties have not grown. Further, as post-poll surveys show, a substantial section of the OBCs are already with the BJP which is an aspect of the pan-Hindu identity consolidation.

The Hindu nationalist voting bloc provides the BJP with an inherent advantage. To this bloc it just needs to add other vote getting measures. One such is the pool of beneficiaries through welfare schemes and cash transfers like the Ladli Behna scheme in Madhya Pradesh and another is micro-caste electoral engineering. The latter was a particularly important feature in the electoral success in Rajasthan where the BJP’s meticulous selection of candidates based on caste considerations paid off.

The Congress approach to go it alone in these states has also proved to be shortsighted. While the main fight was between the BJP and the Congress, the refusal of the Congress to have electoral adjustments with parties like the Samajwadi Party in Madhya Pradesh and other smaller players in these states prevented the rallying of all the anti-BJP forces.

The Congress’s decisive victory in Telangana has led to the ouster of the two-term TRS/BRS government. Much of the blame for the debacle of the BRS lies with the capricious leadership of K Chandrashekar Rao. First of all, in a whimsical move, the unique Telangana identity of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) was abandoned for a Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi. There were the erratic forays into Maharashtra, Odisha and other places to establish an all-India character for the party, even while discontent was brewing at home. Till six months ago, it appeared as if the BJP was gaining ground and emerging as the main challenger of the BRS.

However, with the Congress victory in the Karnataka elections in May, the mood changed and Congress began to garner all the anti-BRS forces and the momentum continued till the Congress registered this big victory. However, it must be noted that the BJP has improved its position significantly winning eight seats compared to one seat in 2018 and increasing its vote share from 7 to 13.9 per cent.

The Mizoram election has seen the end of the three decade rule of the Mizo National Front (MNF) and the victory of the newly-formed Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM), which has won 27 out of the 40 seats in the assembly. Unlike the MNF, which was part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Lalduhoma, the chief minister-designate of the ZPM has announced that it will not join any national alliance.

It has happened twice in the recent past that the results of the assembly elections in the three Hindi states have not been reflected in the Lok Sabha elections held a few months later. This happened both in 2004 and 2019. If the Congress and other major opposition parties draw the right lessons from this defeat and take appropriate measures to project an alternative political, ideological and economic narrative alongside an effective pooling of the anti-BJP votes, the battle for 2024 will be truly joined. (IPA Service)

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By P. Sudhir

It has become a crime in New India to observe Children’s Day by remembering the Palestinian children killed in Israel’s war on Gaza. This is what happened on November 14 in Mumbai when a few score people, including minor girls, held a silent prayer in Juhu beach. 17 of them were arrested by the police and kept in the police station till the evening. All of them belong to the minority community. For the BJP rulers, death of 5,600 children in Gaza is of no consequence.

On the same day, the Delhi police sent out a notice to Imams of various mosques warning them not to mention Palestine or the attack by Israeli forces in Gaza during prayers or sermons. Even a prayer in memory of the thousands who have died in Gaza is prohibited. This is an attack not only on the basic right of free speech but on religious freedom.

In Srinagar, the administration ordered the Jamia Masjid, the main mosque in the city, to be shut for Friday prayers on October 13 and all successive Fridays. The step is being taken to prevent any gesture of solidarity with the people of Gaza during prayers.

In all BJP-ruled states, any protest or demonstration in support of Palestine is prohibited or prevented by the police. Even in Delhi, students and other protestors were rounded up while protesting at Jantar Mantar.

All these actions stem from the BJP-RSS outlook which lionizes Israel and depicts the Palestinian struggle as terrorism. This is also reflected in the complete shift that the Modi government has effected of outright support to Israel and refusal to support the call for ceasefire in the war against Gaza which is demanded by the entire global south.

Hindutva and rightwing Zionism are ideological brothers. VD Savarkar, the originator of the concept of Hindutva wrote as early as 1923 that he supported the setting up of a Jewish State in Palestine. Savarkar consistently supported Zionism as he saw it as anti-Muslim. In stark contrast, Gandhiji was equally firm in supporting the Palestinian cause. He wrote in 1938 that: “It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct”.

The Modi government’s reversal of India’s stand on Palestine is the culmination of the strategic relations forged with Israel by the first BJP-led Vajpayee government. LK Advani, then deputy prime minister, had visited Israel in 2000, the first high ranking Indian government leader to do so. This resulted in various military and security relations. Subsequently, the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who represented the Zionist rightwing, visited India, the first Israeli prime minister to do so.

Narendra Modi has deepened this strategic relationship further along with his rightwing counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel has become a key supplier of technology and equipment for the internal security apparatus of the Modi government. One such technology is the Pegasus spyware, which was supplied by an Israeli company with the approval of the Israeli government.

The genocidal attack on Gaza has evoked worldwide protest and condemnation. Even in countries where the governments are fully with Israel, tens of thousands of people have come out on to the streets to demonstrate their support and solidarity with the people of Gaza and Palestine. In Britain, where the Conservative government and the opposition Labour party leadership are both fully backing Israel’s aggression on Gaza, hundreds of thousands of people have been demonstrating every Saturday. Protests were held in Paris and Berlin where the French and German governments had prohibited such protests or the display of Palestinian flag.

The announcement of a four day truce and exchange of 50 women and children held hostage by Hamas for 150 Palestinian women and children in Israeli prisons is a temporary respite. Netanyahu has made it clear that the war will go on after the truce period. That is why it is important to mount pressure for a permanent ceasefire till a political solution is found.

In India, there are big solidarity meetings being held involving thousands of people in all the districts of Kerala. There has been a big demonstration in Kolkata organised by the Left parties. The Left parties are also organising solidarity actions and meetings in different states.

But given the dominant communal narrative put out by the BJP and the corporate media portraying the Palestinians as “Muslim terrorists”, the other secular opposition parties have remained passive on the issue. This makes it all the more important for the Left forces to take up a widespread and sustained campaign in support of a permanent ceasefire, for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and for setting up of an independent Palestinian State. They must draw in other secular and democratic forces in this mobilisation and foil the BJP’s plan to make this into an Islamophobic issue. (IPA Service)

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By P. Sudhir

Madhya Pradesh is a state ruled longest by the BJP after Gujarat. The BJP has ruled the state from 2002 till now with a one and a half year interruption of a Congress government (which was toppled through defections). During the assembly election campaign, union home minister, Amit Shah, has claimed that the BJP has turned Madhya Pradesh from a bimaru (sick) state to a bemisaal (incomparable) state in the last 18 years.

After having ruled the state for such a long time, the BJP has to justify its record. That is why a host of BJP leaders, apart from Amit Shah, like Nirmala Sitharaman and Rajnath Singh have been declaring that Madhya Pradesh has ceased to be a sick state and become an “unmatched” one.

The BIMARU tag was attached to the Hindi region states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh to underline their economic backwardness and low level of social indicators. It is this categorisation of Madhya Pradesh that the BJP now disowns by declaring that the state has made rapid progress under BJP rule.

But what is the reality? Madhya Pradesh’s economic performance is among the worst in the country. In 1993-94, the state ranked 19 out of 27 states in per capita net state domestic product. However, this rose by only two spots to 17 in 2021-22. As per the NITI Aayog, over half the population in the state belongs to the lowest two wealth quintiles. As far as education is concerned, in 2020, Madhya Pradesh ranked 20 of the 30 states on indicators such as enrollment in elementary, higher secondary and college level education.

Madhya Pradesh’s rank in social indicators is also low. For instance, in 2019-21, Madhya Pradesh had 35.7 per cent stunted children and ranked 25 out of 30 states. The state’s ranking in the parameter of underweight children improved only by two spots (28 to 26) between 2015-16 and 2019-21. The overall low social ranking of Madhya Pradesh is indicated by its rank in the Human Development Index (HDI), where it was at the 27th position out of 30 states in 2021.

If the socio-economic indicators continue to languish in the bottom half of the list of states, the overall impact of the communal-corporate regime that the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government has instituted shows deleterious results. The state has seen the loot of national resources with indiscriminate mining allowed. The latest is the Dhirauli coal mining lease given to the Adani group which is spread over 2,672 hectares of forests, fields and villages.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Madhya Pradesh had the highest number of cases recorded of atrocities against Scheduled Tribes in 2021, accounting for 29.8 per cent of the total cases recorded in the country. It also had the third highest number of cases recorded of atrocities against Scheduled Castes with 14.1 per cent of the cases.

The Hindutva agenda, which has been vigorously pursued particularly in the current term of the BJP government beginning 2019, has seen vicious attacks on the minorities. The attacks on Muslim vendors in Indore and the demolition of the houses of Muslims in Khargone are some of the instances of persecution of the minorities. Even Christian places of worships have not been spared.

All told, the nature of the communal-corporate regime in Madhya Pradesh has only led to the perpetuation of the `bimaru’ state of affairs, a society which is infected by the communal pathogen and marked by the naked oppression of dalits, adivasis and minorities.

This is a record which is causing great disaffection among the people and it will be reflected in the verdict when Madhya Pradesh goes to the polls on November 17. (IPA Service)

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By P. Sudhir

One of the ways federalism and the powers of the elected state legislatures are being undermined, is by governors sitting over the bills passed by the legislatures without taking any decision regarding them.

According to the constitution, bills passed by the state legislatures have to be given assent by the governor in order to become law. As per Article 200, the governor could either give his assent to the bill passed by the legislature or withhold the assent, if it is not a money bill, or reserve the proposed law for the consideration of the president, if he or she thinks the bill derogates from or endangers the power of judicial review of the high court.

In case the governor chooses to withhold assent, he or she should return the bill “as soon as possible” with a message requesting the legislative assembly to reconsider the bill or any specified provisions or suggested amendments. The assembly, if it reconsiders and passes the bill, again the governor cannot withhold his or her assent. This means, the constitutional head of the state should give way to the considered decision of the elected legislature.

Under the Modi government, the overall assault on states’ rights has also taken the form of governors sitting over bills passed by the legislatures in states run by opposition governments. In Kerala, the governor, Arif Mohammed Khan, has sat over eight bills passed by the state legislature, three of them are pending for over two years. In Tamil Nadu, the governor RN Ravi has been sitting over 12 bills passed by the state legislature. In Punjab, the governor Banwarilal Purohit has kept seven bills pending without any decision. The bills not given assent cover issues such as public health, procedure of appointment of vice chancellors, higher education, lokayukta and cooperative societies.

The Punjab state government had approached the Supreme Court regarding the governor’s inaction and it has been followed by the governments of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The Kerala government, in its special leave petition, has stated that: “The conduct of the governor, as would presently be demonstrated, threatens to defeat and subvert the very fundamentals and basic foundations of our constitution, including the rule of law and democratic good governance, apart from defeating the rights of the people of the state to the welfare measures sought to be implemented through the bills”.

The constitution does not provide for any discretionary power of the governor to veto any legislation passed by the state assembly. However, since Article 200 does not state clearly any timeframe for the governor to decide on the legislation, except the words “as soon as possible”, the governors are sitting over the bills indefinitely to exercise a “pocket veto”.

Earlier in the year, the Telangana state government had filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court on the ten bills not being given assent by the governor. On April 23, a bench comprising the Chief Justice of India Chandrachud and Justice PS Narasimha observed that the bills sent for assent to the governor must be returned “as soon as possible” and not sit over them, making state legislative assemblies wait indefinitely.

However, this direction of the Supreme Court does not seem to have had any effect on the governors of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Punjab.

On November 6, the Chief Justice of India, heading a three-member bench of the Supreme Court, while hearing the petition of the Punjab state government, observed that governors should not start acting only after a petition is filed before the Supreme Court. He further stated that state governors must not be oblivious of the fact that they are not elected representatives of the people. The chief justice also agreed to hear the petitions filed by the Kerala and Tamil Nadu state governments, along with the Punjab petition on November 10.

The refusal of the governors of these states to decide on the bills by the state legislatures as per the provisions of Article 200 of the constitution is patently unconstitutional. The constitution does not provide for a governor to sit over a bill indefinitely and the phrase “as soon as possible” in the Article indicates the spirit that there should be no undue delay. In fact, Justice Rohington Nariman, in a 2020 judgment in the Keisham Megha Chandra Singh case, had said “reasonable time” would mean three months.

The observations made by the Supreme Court so far indicate that the governor cannot exercise the powers of an elected representative, nor does he have discretionary powers in the matter under the constitution. It is now upto the Supreme Court to give a definitive judgment on what a reasonable timeframe would be for the governor to take a decision on a bill passed by the state legislature presented to him or her for assent.

The arbitrary role of the governors, under the Modi dispensation, of disregarding the legislative powers of an elected state assembly, must be put an end to. (IPA Service)

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NEW DELHI: In a bid to streamline the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) and prevent delays in the execution of the resolution plans, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) has floated a discussion paper and proposed amendments to the existing regulations.

The proposed amendments suggest to structure the resolution plan in two parts – Part A will deal with inflow, that is, payments under the resolution plan, payment of insolvency resolution process cost et cetera; and Part B will deal with distribution to the various stakeholders.

“Structuring the resolution plan in two parts will enable the Adjudicating Authority (AA) to first approve the resolution plan effectuating control by the resolution applicant so that inflow can take place and the Corporate Debtor (CD) may start functioning again. The second part shall deal with distribution amongst the various stakeholders,” the discussion paper noted.

The discussion paper – which seeks comments from public till November 22 – also proposes to amend regulations dealing with: the approval of committee of creditors (CoC) for insolvency resolution process cost; monthly CoC meetings; valuation methodology; disclosure of valuation reports; continuation of process activities pending disposal of extension application by the (AA); and clarity in minimum entitlement to dissenting financial creditors.

Despite several amendments in the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) since its inception in 2016, the existing corporate resolution process is still beset with undue delays, protected litigations and a lack of transparency and clarity on several issues, say experts.

“The proposals presented in the discussion papers are expected to bring about comprehensive changes to make the mechanism robust, more effective and efficient while removing the existing shortcomings in the system,” said  Sudhir Chandi, Partner, Resurgent Resolution Professional LLP.

“The issue relating to valuation is proposed to be addressed in a more realistic and pragmatic manner…transparency is proposed to be brought about relating to the methodology of valuation for avoiding unnecessary doubts and sharing this information in advance with all stakeholders as a part of the information memorandum will also help in a big way,” Chandi added.

Anoop Rawat, Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co, said, “some of the suggestions such as pro rata or staggered payment to the dissenting creditors as against payment of entire entitlement prior to any payment to assenting creditors need further deliberation in view of recent supreme court judgements on the timing of payment to dissenting financial creditors.”

Source: The Financial Express

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By P. Sudhir

Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, by seeking to make communal capital out of the bomb blasts at a Christian group gathering in Kalamassery in Kerala, has exposed the vicious nature of the campaign the BJP-RSS circles are conducting regarding Israel’s war on Gaza.

Chandrasekhar, immediately after the blasts, hinted that jihadi elements had targeted a Christian congregation. He blamed the Kerala government because it had “allowed” a Hamas leader to address a gathering and as a consequence within twenty four hours the bomb blasts had occurred. He further accused the CPI(M) and Congress of “appeasement politics”.  There is no question of “allowing” any speech by a Hamas leader as the particular speech of the former Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh is available on the internet and can be downloaded by anyone.  Further, unlike what Chandrasekhar and his party says, the Hamas is not designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations.

Unfortunately for Chandrasekhar, within a few hours after the blast, a man surrendered before the police, claiming responsibility for the attack.  He happens to be a dissident member of the fringe Christian group.  This has made Chandrasekhar appear ridiculous but the viciousness of his remarks cannot be overlooked because this is the type of anti-Palestinian communal campaign being conducted by the social media groups associated with the BJP and the Hindutva forces. They label all Palestinians as jihadis and Hamas as a terrorist outfit; they warn Hindus that they can face similar threats from Muslims in India, just as Israel is experiencing terrorist violence.  Fabricated reports about atrocities committed by Palestinians and Hamas are being widely circulated to promote Islamophobia.  Israel is held up as a model exemplar in fighting Islamic terrorism.

It is this communal worldview which sees the Palestinian struggle for an independent state as a Muslim issue and instinctively supports the Zionist project which seeks to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from their homeland.  The RSS-BJP adopts the rhetoric of the Jewish extremists and the Israeli State who call Palestinians who fight for their rights as “terrorists”.  From the days of V D Savarkar, founder of Hindutva, Hindu rightwing nationalists have always supported Zionism and the establishment of an Israeli State by driving out the Arabs and Palestinians.

It is this Hindutva worldview which today dictates the stand of the Modi government. Narendra Modi has joined the likes of Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak and Olaf Scholz in supporting Israel fully and opposing any call for ceasefire in the war on Gaza.  India, by abstaining in the vote in the UN General Assembly on a resolution calling for a “humanitarian truce” (that was adopted with 120 countries supporting), distanced itself from the stand of the Global South and aligned itself with the western countries in their blind support for Israel.

While the barbaric attack and invasion of Gaza unfolds, the Indian government is silent on the war crimes committed by the Israeli armed forces. After the savage bombardment of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, in which over a hundred civilians were killed, the foreign ministers of even some of the European Union states called upon Israel to abide by international rules of war, but the Indian foreign ministry was silent.

The Modi government has abandoned whatever pretense it had of balancing support for Israel with a commitment to the Palestinian cause for a separate independent State.  The United States has given carte blanche to the obnoxious Netanyahu regime to perpetrate mass murder and subject the civilian population in Gaza, including women and children, to mass starvation and lack of water to drink.

The Modi government is complicit with this inhuman strategy.  Not only will it not support the Palestinian people in their hour of distress, the Modi government at the centre and the BJP governments in the states are suppressing protests against the Israeli aggression and in support of the Palestinian people.  The latest instance is the arrest of a 92 year-old former Jan Sangh leader in Jammu, who was going to organise a meeting in support of the Palestinian people.

Given the refusal of the Israeli government to accept the ceasefire, the battle in Gaza is going to be a prolonged one, it is necessary for the Left and democratic forces to widen and intensify their campaign in solidarity with the Palestinian people and expose the Modi government’s reactionary and communal stance on the issue. (IPA Service)

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By P. Sudhir

The speech of the RSS chief at the annual Vijayadashami rally in Nagpur is supposed to contain the authoritative pronouncements of the Sangh. In the rally last Tuesday, Mohan Bhagwat’s speech continued with the theme of the last few Vijayadashami speeches, where the Sangh totally identified with the Narendra Modi government and elaborated the worldview of the RSS-guided government.

This time, the speech was obviously geared to the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections with a call to the ranks of the RSS to rally behind the BJP and the government which, according to Bhagwat, is working assiduously to make India on its own a great power. But Bhagwat introduced a new threat being posed by some people who do not want India to progress. “Hence they tried to create discrimination in society; an attempt to break the constructive collectivity, create separation and conflict”. He called these destructive forces “cultural Marxists or woke, or the awakened ones”. He painted a dark picture of how these forces work: “Their modus operandi involves taking control of the media and academia and plunging education, culture, politics and social environment into confusion, chaos and corruption”.

What is to be made of these convoluted and cryptic formulations? It is interesting that Bhagwat has used the term ‘cultural Marxists’, something which is used by the far-right and neo-fascist circles internationally. According to them, ‘cultural Marxism’ is conspiracy to destroy western morality and civilisation and to impose an elite concept of political correctness. The RSS is borrowing this term to smear the Left and all those democratic forces who criticise the fascistic ideology of the RSS and the authoritarian attempts of the Modi government to ‘homogenise’ Indian society and culture. Actually, there is nothing called ‘cultural Marxism’, something which Bhagwat himself admits to, when he says that they moved away from Marx in the 1920s.

‘Woke’ and ‘woke culture’ are also used by the rightwing to attack those who speak out against racism and discrimination of various types of minorities. But here too, it is not the Marxists who practice ‘woke’, but bourgeois-liberals in the west. Bhagwat is imitating the rhetoric of the ultra-conservative right to attack the Left in India for being alien to ‘Bharatiya’ culture. It is also the justification for the RSS-led drive to communalise the educational system and to target universities like JNU. Just as ‘academia’, media is also subject to control and suppression as seen in the way `NewsClick’ has been attacked.

The actual target of the RSS chief is the Left. Something which he has taken up as seen in his recent speech at Pune at a book launch, where he called for struggle against the ‘Left ecosystem’ which, according to him, has infiltrated the educational system and other institutions.

The RSS is increasingly concerned about the growing assertion of the different socially-oppressed groups for social justice. It also views any state or regional aspirations as divisive. No wonder, Bhagwat sees the violence and strife in Manipur as caused by external and disruptive forces and not due to the narrow identity politics promoted by the BJP and the Sangh in north-east India.

This theme of Bhagwat was echoed by Narendra Modi in his Dussehra rally speech in Delhi on the same day. He talked about defeating the forces which are trying to divide the country in the name of casteism and regionalism. Modi sees the demand for caste census as an instrument to divide the country through casteism at a time when he is engaged in making India the third biggest economy in the world. For both Bhagwat and Modi, the opening of the Ram temple at Ayodhya is a symbol of national regeneration. They posed this as a symbol of ‘cultural unity’ as against the disruptive forces.

The speeches of Bhagwat and Modi make it evident that in their drive to establish a Hindutva authoritarian state, they will target the educational system and the pluri-cultural fabric to weed out all ‘alien’ elements. The total convergence of the RSS and the Modi government in fulfilling this pernicious aim was on full display. (IPA Service)

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By P Sudhir

If President Biden’s visit to Tel Aviv for a day demonstrated anything, it is the unremitting and blind support for the Israeli settler-colonial State.  The visit underlined what has been the unchanging reality since 1948 – the United States has nurtured and cultivated Israel as its outpost in West Asia.  The United States has poured billions of dollars of aid and sophisticated arms and equipment into making Israel a military-garrison State.

In doing so, the United States has overlooked the oppression of the Palestinian people, the atrocities they have suffered and the ethnic cleansing which is going on in occupied territories like the West Bank.  It has backed the inhuman blockade of Gaza, which is home to 2.3 million Palestinian people over the past sixteen years.

In recent years, when the Israeli State has been actively undermining the two-State formula by expanding the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and imposing an apartheid-like system, the United States and its western allies have connived in this diabolical plan, while still paying lip service to the two-State solution.

Prior to Biden’s visit, his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, had shuttled around Israel and five other Arab countries to try and get the neighbouring states like Egypt and Jordan to cooperate while Israel prepared to launch its ground invasion of Gaza.  Blinken failed to convince the Egyptian president to allow Palestinians from Gaza to move into Egypt through the Rafah crossing. As President Sisi declared, once the Palestinians were pushed into Egypt, they would not be allowed to return to Gaza, making them permanent refugees in Egypt.  Jordan also refused to consider any movement of people into Jordan.

After having fully endorsed Israel’s right to act in self-defence in invading Gaza, the United States was frantically trying to ward off the impending human catastrophe.

The night before Biden arrived in Tel Aviv, there was the horrific massacre caused by the bombing of the Al-Ahli Anglican hospital in southern Gaza, which has led to the death of 471 people so far.  This gruesome attack took place in the background of the Israeli military ordering 22 hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate their patients and staff members within 24 hours or be responsible for the consequences.  The evacuation order was issued on the evening of October 12 and the Al-Ahli hospital was hit by rocket fire on October 15.  Israel now claims that they are not responsible for the bombing of the hospital and that it was caused by a failed rocket fired by the Islamic Jihad. Military experts and many media commentators have noted that the Gaza militants do not possess rockets with such powerful explosives.  It is only the Israeli military which has powerful bombs.

Nonetheless, President Biden shamelessly supported the Israeli version and said that it was done “by the other team”.  Thus, Biden became complicit in the war crimes committed by Israel. President Biden was snubbed by the cancellation of his meeting with the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority which was to be held in Amman.  No Arab leader, even allies of the US, could be seen meeting with the US president at a time when Israel had perpetrated this terrible crime.

That the United States would go to any extent to shield Israel became clear on the very day Biden was in Israel.  At the United Nations’ Security Council, a resolution moved by Brazil, which called for “humanitarian pauses” to allow lifesaving supplies to go into Gaza was vetoed by the United States.  This veto of a proposal for humanitarian supplies into Gaza shows the complicity of the United States in starving the people of Gaza of food and medicines.

Instead, Biden announced after his visit that he had asked the Israeli war cabinet to allow lifesaving supplies to Gaza through the Rafah crossing.  As a result, 20 trucks carrying supplies would be allowed to cross possibly on October 20. This too would happen, if Egypt could repair the roads at the crossing which had been bombed by Israel.  The United Nations’ relief agency has said that at least 100 trucks of aid would have to go through daily if some minimum relief has to be provided.

Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza will widen the conflict in the region. Already the Hezbollah in Lebanon has announced that they will not keep quiet if such an attack takes place. All over the Arab world and West Asia, people are out in the streets protesting against Israel’s brutal assault in Gaza which, on the eleventh day, has left more than 3,000 dead including over 1,100 children.  The United States by backing Israel through political and military support has condemned itself in the eyes of the world.  (IPA Service)

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The BJP’s big push to change its fortunes in the region, which had spurned it in the last Madhya Pradesh assembly polls, seems to be facing some headwinds as regional factors take precedence and the Congress’ pitch for change challenges the ruling party’s narrative woven around the planks of development and welfarism.

Across several constituencies of the Chambal-Gwalior region, Prime Minister Narendra Modi largely draws unreserved praise for his stewardship of the country but many of the same voters also talk of the need for “badlav” (change) in the state, offering mixed views on Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led government and voicing a litany of complaints.

If there is some acknowledgement about his government’s claim of improvement in conditions of road, electricity and water supply, many also question its overall record and express wariness with Chouhan’s 18-year-old reign, save for the Congress’ brief 15-month-old tenure under Kamal Nath after the 2018 polls, since 2005.

Issues like price rise, unemployment, bureaucratic apathy, corruption and stray cattle are listed by a cross-section of voters in their criticism of the government.

Some voters express their sympathy with the BJP because of their support to Modi. The factors which appear to be helping the BJP include its showpiece welfare initiatives like the Ladli Behna Yojna, a cash transfer scheme for poor women, and a similar cash transfer scheme for farmers launched by the Centre.

A group of farmers in Hurawali Tiraha in Gwalior say that it is not uncommon for women in their households to cite the Ladli Behna Yojna to voice their support for Chouhan when men in families criticise his government.

“If Shivraj sends me money every month, then I should also be grateful,” Malti Srivas says while her husband Sudhir Srivas, a barber, expresses his unhappiness with the government.

However, one of the more frequent refrains is the need for “badlav”. At Karah Dham, a famous shrine dedicated to a revered local saint, Gauri Shankar Sharma describes himself as a nationalist and says the BJP has done good work at the Centre and the state. The local prasad-seller then adds, “When one person or family becomes all-powerful in a village, then everybody has to bow to him. It is not good. There should be ’badlav’.” A group of devotees drawn to the temple in Morena from different places complain of corruption and bureaucratic insensitivity to people.

With inputs from News18

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By P. Sudhir

The ferocious conflict which has erupted with the astounding Hamas attacks in southern Israel and the Israeli counteroffensive with the savage bombardment of Gaza constitutes a new chapter in the ongoing history of the occupation and the resistance to it by the Palestinian people.

At the time of writing this editorial, after the fourth day of the conflict, it is reported that 1,200 Israelis have been killed (of which 155 are soldiers) and 2700 injured.  On the Palestinian side, 1,055 people have died and 5,128 injured so far in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza; in the occupied West Bank, 17 Palestinians were killed and 80 injured.

The loss of civilian lives, including tragically of women and children, due to the Hamas attacks within Israel and the mounting deaths of civilians in the Gaza, where also women and children have been killed due to the bombardment, is something to be strongly condemned.

At the same time, it is necessary to reject the narrative put out by the global corporate media and the western ruling circles, in particular, that what has happened is a gruesome terrorist attack on Israel without any mention of the Israeli occupation.

The Hamas attack must be set in the context of the decades-long Israeli occupation and subjugation of the Palestinian people.  Since the 1967 war, West Bank and Gaza were taken over by the Israeli armed forces and remained under its occupation for the past 56 years.

By international law and United Nations’ resolutions, these are occupied territories.  Over the years, illegal Jewish settlements have been established in the West Bank and the territory cut up into different parts with security barriers.  A wall was built to seal off the West Bank from Israel.  An apartheid system has been instituted.  With the advent of the far-right government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu in 2022, the oppression of the Palestinians has intensified.  The ultra-nationalist government has made life hell for the Palestinians with settler mobs and far-right gangs driving out Palestinians from their homes and villages and killing people with impunity. In this year alone before the conflict, 248 Palestinians have been killed by the security forces and settlers, which is one Palestinian a day.

In Jerusalem, Palestinian families are evicted by force and their homes occupied.  There is a process of ethnic cleansing taking place in East Jerusalem.  The Al-Aqsa mosque complex, the third holiest site of the Muslim world, has seen provocations by extreme Jewish mobs and the security forces entering the mosque and beating up worshippers.

As far as the Gaza strip is concerned, after withdrawing their military force in 2007, Israel imposed a blockade of the strip, which is home to 2.3 million Palestinians.  For the past 16 years, Gaza has been under the merciless siege and become an open air prison.  During this period, there have been waves of aerial bombardment whenever efforts to resist the blockade occurred.  It is from this “strip of hell” that Hamas mobilised and organised its latest unprecedented assault.

The much vaunted Israeli intelligence and military were taken by surprise and the myth of the invincibility of the Israeli defence forces shattered.  In revenge, Netanyahu and his cohorts have decided to wage a total war against Gaza and in the words of Netanyahu “alter the reality in Gaza”.  The Israeli defence minister Gallant has ordered a full siege of Gaza with no fuel, food or electricity supply to the strip.  He called for a struggle against the “human animals” in Gaza.

In the four days of aerial bombardment, nearly 900 people, including women and children, have perished and thousands injured. There is no electricity, water or food in many parts.  The United Nation’s Human Rights chief has called this siege “a collective punishment”, which is a war crime as per international law.  Israel is amassing troops on the border with Gaza and a ground invasion is imminent. What will unfold will be the massacre of thousands. Despite all the havoc and destruction, this will only lead to another round of resistance by the Palestinian people, who have never given up their fight for liberation in the last seven decades.

The United States, which is the main backer of Israel, has stepped in to supply lethal arms and ammunition to the armed forces which will be used to slaughter Palestinians.  Throughout these years, the United States and its western allies have done nothing to prevent the subjugation of the Palestinians, even though they pay lip service to the two-State solution.

In the present conflict, Narendra Modi has echoed the US position condemning the terrorist attacks and declared “solidarity with Israel”. There is no mention of support for the Palestinian cause and the two-State solution. As long as the occupation of Palestinian lands continues and the Palestinian people are oppressed, there can be no lasting peace for Israel and West Asia.

From the days of the national movement under Gandhiji’s leadership, India has always stood by the Palestinian people. Now is the time to reiterate this resolve.  (IPA Service)

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