India

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Tue Sep 18, 2018 1:33 pm

What makes an Urban Naxal?
Posted Sep 12, 2018 by Bernard D'Mello

Image

Originally published: Economic & Political Weekly (Vol. 53, no. 36, September 8, 2018) |
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government and the Hindutvavadi “nationalist” movement’s demonic drive for cultural orthodoxy seems to know no bounds. What is alarming is the former’s support for and complicity in the acts of the latter, as also the Indian state’s control of its “necessary” enemies through the use of state terror, with the category “urban Naxals” singled out in the latest of such drives (in June and August 2018) that otherwise routinely target Muslims, militant oppressed nationalities, and “Maoists.” In the government’s categorisation, the “urban Naxals,” at least so far, are lawyers, rights activists, poets, writers, journalists, and professors, deemed to be “active members” of the Communist Party of India (CPI) (Maoist).

The five people arrested in August are charged under, among other criminal laws, sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The residential/office premises of these “urban Naxals” and some others, whom the government also wanted to harass and intimidate, were raided. The intention to malign and discredit was particularly evident when sections of India’s “embedded” media brought the charges against some of them in blatant acts of intimidation on prime-time TV. Some of the “guilty” were publicly castigated as “desh drohis” (betrayers of the nation), “invisible enemies of the nation,” and “serious threats to Indian democracy” for “aiding the CPI (Maoist).”

Among the presumed “invisible enemies of the nation” and “serious threats to Indian democracy” is the Economic & Political Weekly’s (EPW) distinguished journalist Gautam Navlakha. Navlakha joined the EPW in the early 1980s, working alongside Rajani Desai, M S Prabhakara, and Krishna Raj, among the best of Indian journalists I have known. Later in the 1980s, when he shifted residence to Delhi, he continued working for the EPW, and was designated as editorial consultant. He continued in that capacity until January 2011, when he requested the then editor C Rammanohar Reddy to be relieved of his formal association because he wanted to devote more time as a democratic rights activist with the Peoples Union for Democratic Rights. But, he has continued to write for the EPW.

Something quite distinctive began to take shape in Navlakha’s writings from the early 1990s onwards, when he became closely associated with the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, participating in its fact-finding teams, its campaigns, and in the writing of its reports. Deeply committed to the truth, much of it buried in the ground in Kashmir in unmarked graves, Navlakha’s writings in the EPW and other magazines removed the fig leaves that the Indian state had used to cover up its terrible record on the human rights front in Kashmir: the enforced disappearances and subsequent killings in fake encounters, the legal immunity to army, paramilitary, and police officers for their actions, and so on.

The lie of Indian democracy, Navlakha has been showing his readers, is evident in Kashmir. You have to be really brave to be a journalist and rights activist like Navlakha, especially when you are aware of the establishment’s art of propaganda, with big “embedded” media on its side. The victims of the violence are constantly being blamed for the violence, and angry readers will not even be willing to listen to you. Even sections of India’s parliamentary left have been dismissive of Navlakha’s writings on Kashmir, calling him “misguided.” But, he has stood his ground with facts and reason, and has continued to indict the Indian state for the hell of internal colonialism in Indian-administered Kashmir.

To be a Marxist–socialist, one must protest against all kinds of oppressions, whether ethnic, national, caste, class, racial, or gender. This is at the core of Marxist–socialist ethics. Marxism is a philosophy of the downtrodden, the proletariat, and the semi-proletariat, in the latter, especially the poor peasantry. Marxism is not a philosophy of power; it is a philosophy of equality, which Navlakha has imbibed and practised. His journalistic and rights investigations thus drew him to the heartland of Maoist rebellion in southern Chhattisgarh where the Indian state has unleashed counter-insurgency warfare, called Operation Green Hunt, since September 2009.

Here, Navlakha has almost been what the American journalist Edgar Snow was in the 1930s in China (remember his Red Star over China, published in 1938), when he entered the Red territory, reporting the facts as he saw them, about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the Communist Party of China’s leaders and its programme and policies. Navlakha’s 2012 book, Days and Nights in the Heartland of Rebellion, reports the facts as he saw them at a Maoist guerrilla base in southern Chhattisgarh. Based on his understanding of the civil war, Navlakha has been advocating that both the Indian state and the CPI (Maoist) adopt Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Protocol II of 1977 relating to non-international armed conflict.

What then of the “urban Naxal”? Keeping in mind the practice of Navlakha, I would define a “Naxal” as follows. A Naxal is one who cannot remain unmoved upon finding that most of the Indian people are still inadequately fed, miserably clothed, wretchedly housed, poorly educated, and without access to decent medical care, and feels that this state of being stems from India’s deeply oppressive and exploitative social order, crying out for revolutionary change. My perception is that, in this sense of the term, a great many Indians might indeed be Naxals, whether urban or rural, like Navlakha and me, and you do not have to necessarily be a member or a supporter of the CPI (Maoist) to be one.

https://mronline.org/2018/09/12/what-ma ... ban-naxal/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Sun Sep 30, 2018 8:07 pm

« Translations of interview with Fred Engst on “The Struggle for Actually Building Socialist Society”
India’s Private Banks and Private Investors: False Theory, Dangerous Consequences
September 30, 2018 by rupeindia

— Hemindra Hazari[1]

India’s private sector banks were held up for years as the standard of efficency and corporate governance to which public sector banks should aspire. But now it emerges that private bank after private bank has in fact been harbouring bad debts, fudged accounts, corrupt deals, gross mismanagement, overly paid CEOs and delinquent boards.

These revelations should not be treated as an unrelated series of incidents. It is time to question the theoretical underpinnings of the Reserve Bank of India’s hitherto ‘hands off’ style of regulating these banks. And time for us to realise that what goes on inside the banks concerns not only the banks, but the economy as a whole.

According to the currently reigning economic doctrine, self-interest ensures efficient outcomes. We are told that the private sector, acting in its rational self-interest, chooses wisely, but the public sector tends to be guided by political pressures and corruption. Hence the alleged “phone banking” of Government-owned banks: that is, public sector bankers were said to have taken credit decisions based on phone calls from bureaucrats and politicians for favoured industrialists.

Correspondingly, the reigning doctrine presumes that, when banks are listed on the capital market, and foreign and institutional investors buy sizeable stakes in them, the boards and managements of these banks would exercise due diligence, ensure transparency, and protect shareholders’ interests. Under the eagle eye of private investors, corporate governance standards in these banks would rise.

Private sector governance on display
Indeed, a few years ago, the Committee to Review Governance of Boards of Banks in India (the Nayak Committee) raised the alarm over the “fragile” state of bad debt-ridden public sector banks (PSBs). In its Report of May 2014, it contrasted the weak and disempowered state of PSB boards with the relatively active and engaged nature of the boards of private sector banks. It thus recommended that the Government stake in all PSBs be brought below 50 per cent. Further, it called for the creation of a category of Authorised Bank Investors, who could hold a stake of 20 per cent in the bank without regulatory approvals, or 15 per cent if they also had a seat on the bank board.

This notion of the superior quality of private sector governance has not fared too well in the last few months. The newspaper-reading public has witnessed the spectacle of Chanda Kochhar’s brazen conflict of interest at ICICI Bank, Shikha Sharma’s mismanagement at Axis Bank, the lack of accounting integrity at both Axis Bank and at Rana Kapoor’s Yes Bank, and the complete collapse of corporate governance by Ravi Parthasarthy’s team at Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS). In all these cases, the boards of the banks, decorated with ‘independent’ directors, played the role of either mute spectators or cheerleaders for the delinquent managements.

What has not been remarked on is that this has happened despite significant foreign institutional holding in these listed entities, and despite the presence of prestigious foreign and domestic institutional investors’ nominee directors on the board of the IL&FS (which is unlisted). Where scattered, less-informed shareholders might not be able to influence the management of a firm, these were cases of concentrated, well-informed, and at times board-represented investors. According to the reigning dogma, the significant foreign and domestic institutional ownership in these entities should have resulted in better corporate governance standards in them, failing which they would have been disciplined by the market. But in reality, no such thing took place.

Cooking the books
In the case of Axis Bank, on July 27, 2017, nearly 10 months before Shikha Sharma’s term was coming to an end, the board of directors announced a fourth three-year term for her, commencing from June 1, 2018. This was after the bank had reported a 56 per cent fall in net profits for the year ended March 31, 2017, and simultaneously reported that it fudged its accounts for the year ended March 31, 2016 by overstating its net profits and under-reporting its non-performing loans. Shareholders received a further jolt a few months later on October 17, 2017, when the bank reported that the Reserve Bank of India had found that Axis had misreported its financials for March 31, 2017 as well.

In the capital market, cooking the books is meant to be an extremely serious offence, as the market valuation of companies is said to be based on the financial accounts, as is senior management’s compensation. Therefore, following any mis-statement of accounts, the board should have held the chief executive officer responsible and removed the individual, and if the board failed to do it, institutional shareholders should have exerted pressure on the board to adopt this stringent punishment. The shareholding pattern of Axis Bank on July 21, 2017 reveals foreign holding of 52.55 per cent and Indian mutual fund holding of 7.54 per cent. Despite information in the public domain that Axis Bank had fudged results for the year ended March 31, 2016, not only did the board prematurely announce a fourth three-year term for Shikha Sharma, but the majority of shareholders did not seem to object to such an individual being appointed by the board for a fourth term.

A similar story unfolded in Yes Bank, where the bank reported two successive years of fudged accounts for the years ended March 31, 2016 and 2017. The bank’s shareholding pattern as on March 31, 2018 shows foreign portfolio investors’ holding at 42.6 per cent, Indian mutual funds at 10.3 per cent, and insurance companies (excluding Life Insurance Corporation) at 14.2 per cent. In Yes Bank’s case, not only did the board decide to re-appoint the promoter-CEO Rana Kapoor for another 3-year term commencing September 1, 2018, but the shareholders at the annual general meeting held on June 12, 2018 with an “overwhelming majority” approved the decision. The majority shareholders, consisting of foreign and private sector institutional investors who manage other people’s money, were content to appoint a serial mis-reporter for another 3-year term.

Interestingly, the Nayak Committee did mention the incentives for ‘evergreening’ (i.e., covering up bad debt by extending more loans to the borrower to avoid default) in private banks, and it called for some measure of RBI random inspection to check this. But this point of the Committee’s report, however inadequate, has been selectively buried, and only its pro-‘liberalisation’ recommendations have been publicised.

Promoter rewards himself at the cost of shareholders
The case of Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB) is also interesting. In its February 28, 2005 guideline, the RBI emphasised diversified ownership, and laid down that a single entity or group of related entities could hold a maximum of 10 per cent in a bank; higher levels required RBI approval.

Thereafter, as per the RBI’s revised guidelines for licensing of new private banks issued on February 22, 2013, it stated that the promoter should have a maximum shareholding of 15 per cent “within 12 years from the date of commencement of business of the bank.” For KMB, the RBI’s latest guideline meant that by February, 2015, the promoters’ shareholding should have been 15 per cent. However, for Uday Kotak, the RBI gave extraordinary ‘regulatory forbearance’ (i.e. leniency) to reduce the promoter holding in KMB to 20 per cent by December 31, 2018 and 15 per cent by March 31, 2020. In all, that amounts to an extension of five years. As on June 30, 2018 the promoter’s stake in KMB was 30 per cent while foreign portfolio investors was 39.93 per centand Indian mutual funds was 6.85 per cent.

Thus as KMB’s share price has consistently risen (from Rs 657 as on March 31, 2015 to Rs 1,342 as on June 30, 2018), the regulator’s forbearance has resulted in a huge notional loss to the non-promoter shareholders of KMB, and corresponding undue gain to the promoters. The undue gain is estimated by this writer to be US$ 2.3 bn (Rs 156 bn, or Rs 15,600 crore). This analysis factors the gains (capital + dividends) accruing to the promoters by not selling their excessive shareholding (i.e. beyond 15 per cent) on March 31, 2015. The foreign portfolio and Indian mutual funds did not protest that this huge gain could have accrued to them instead of the promoter if the RBI had insisted on the promoter shareholding being reduced to 15 per cent by March 31, 2015. Worse, in an audacious move, the board of KMB issued ‘preference capital’, which is akin to debt and has no ownership and voting rights, and tried to include it in ‘paid-up capital’. They thereby claimed that, following this issue, the promoter stake came to 19.7 per cent of capital, conforming to the RBI norm. The RBI rightly rejected this classification.

Passive ‘sophisticated’ investors

The combined market capitalisation of KMB, Axis and Yes Bank, at Rs 417,727 crores, is very significant as compared with SBI’s Rs 236,502 crores. In all three cases of private banks, foreign investors and Indian mutual funds own collectively either the majority of shares, or more than the promoter, but in none of the cases did these shareholders exert their influence on the board of directors to adopt measures which would benefit the non-promoter shareholders. In all the three banks, the board of directors, completely failed to protect the non-promoter shareholders’ interests. If it had not been for the banking regulator which rejected the decisions taken by all three bank board of directors, the non-promoter shareholders would have lost out.

In IL&FS, an unlisted company focusing on developing infrastructure as a project owner and as a financer, the long reign of mismanagement of a single CEO finally resulted in huge losses for the consolidated entity in the year ended March 31, 2018, and the company began defaulting on its financial obligations by early September 2018. What is interesting to note that it had pre-eminent shareholders who had their nominee directors on the board, such as LIC, Orix Corporation, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, State Bank of India and HDFC. Yet during this entire duration, senior management remuneration kept increasing, even while consolidated losses were rising. Despite having nominee directors on the board, these prominent shareholders presided over a company where the important risk management committee only met once in the last four years, and apparently were unconcerned at how the business strategy was unravelling.

The purpose of diversified ownership, listing on the capital markets and the presence of nominee and independent directors is to ensure that the promoter and the executive are kept in check, that they do not exceed their authority and that independent directors protect non-promoter shareholder interests. But in all these celebrated companies, not only did the independent directors fail in their responsibilities, but the foreign portfolio investors, Indian mutual funds and private sector insurance companies also failed to influence the management of these institutions.

Much is made about the lack of corporate governance in the PSBs and public sector financial institutions, but the recent shenanigans in the private sector banks and financial institutions reveal that mismanagement is not only rife in the board of directors, but that it is tolerated by the institutional investors, whose presence, it was claimed, would improve corporate governance and performance. What then of the claimed benefits of lowering the Government stake in public sector banks?

Myths take a beating

The abject failure of major foreign and domestic investors to monitor the banks in which they invested remains something of a mystery. Why would profit-oriented investors, endowed with armies of analysts and with the power to demand detailed answers from managements, remain passive spectators as the banks went astray? One possible explanation is that, as long as the going remained good, these investors behaved like any ordinary retail investor. Like consumers who stick with a well-known brand when buying toothpaste or detergent, it seems these supposedly sophisticated investors did not bother to open the lid and look inside the box, but stuck to the big ‘brands’ – the management personnel celebrated in the media.[2] That is, they preferred to remain passive rentiers, with no positive role to play. So much for the mystique of private investment.

The ‘light touch’ regulation which the RBI has been following in recent years, particularly for private banks, is based on the notion of a perfectly-informed, rational, self-regulating capitalism, and within that a self-regulating financial sector. That notion should have been debunked once and for all by the experience of the global financial crisis which began in 2008; at any rate, the current mess in India’s private banks has certainly refreshed that lesson.

It is important to realise, moreover, that the fate of the banks cannot be left to their boards. The ‘stakeholders’ in banks are not limited to the management and shareholders, or even their depositors. Banks by their nature are highly ‘leveraged’ institutions – their borrowings are very high in relation to their capital, and hence any sizeable deterioration of a bank’s assets threatens the bank itself. At the same time, banks are critical to the functioning of the whole of a market economy – no sector of the economy can function without finance, and so when there is a banking crisis, the entire ‘real economy’ too goes into crisis. Even when there is not a full-blown banking crisis, a slump in bank lending, as at present, slows the entire economy.

Hence the ‘stakeholders’ of the banking system are all participants in the economy, that is, the entire citizenry. Any laxity with banking regulation can bring the economy to its knees. This calls for highly active, intrusive, and continuous regulation by the regulatory authorities, in particular the Reserve Bank of India. The sorry story of India’s stellar private banks tells us what happens when, under the spell of some dubious theory, the RBI fails to do that job.



[1]Research analyst (http://hemindrahazari.com/index.html). Thanks to RUPE for comments and conversations.

[2]Indeed, when the board of Yes Bank put in a fresh plea to the RBI for extending the tenure of Rana Kapoor, the bank’s share prices immediately rallied, although it has since declined.

https://rupeindia.wordpress.com/2018/09 ... sequences/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Wed Oct 24, 2018 1:18 pm

How Kerala fought the heaviest deluge in nearly a century
Tricontinental Dossier no. 9
Posted Oct 19, 2018 by Eds.

Image

Originally published: the Tricontinental (October 2018) |
In the summer of 2018, the Indian State of Kerala was hit by severe rains and flood–the heaviest in nearly a century. The deluge affected 5.4 million people in this southern Indian state with a population of 35 million. More than a million-people had to be evacuated from their homes. As a result of the heavy rain from May onwards, 491 people died during the summer. Many more people could have died from the torrential waters that rose to dangerous heights in August. But, the people of Kerala, led by their Left Democratic Front government, by mass organisations, and an attitude of collective, selfless work, fought back. They would not let Kerala drown.

Image
In front of the metro rail station at Companyppady, Aluva, Ernakulam district. Credit: K Ravikumar/Deshabhimani.

A government of the Left and a population galvanised by the idea of solidarity tackles a natural calamity with all possible resources–every instrument of the state came into play on behalf of the people, who themselves drew upon their resources to care for each other. Even the active hostility of India’s central government–led by the far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)–did not dampen the enthusiasm of the state government and of the people to reduce the scale of the disaster.

Our Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research Dossier no. 9 (October 2018) tells the story of the floods, but more sharply, of the struggle by the left-led government and by Kerala’s population to overcome the havoc wreaked by the marauding torrents. Orijit Sen has generously drawn the cover of this dossier. It depicts the fisher community, who put their boats and their bravery on the line to rescue as many people and animals as possible. Our dossier is dedicated to all the people 3.who set aside their own safety to ensure the safety of their fellow beings.


The coastal regions of south-central Kerala before and after the flood (a 6 month-period)

Image
Before the flood (February 6, 2018). By NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, “Kerala before and after the floods.” File; Public Domain, original. The images are false-color, which makes flood water appear dark blue. Vegetation is bright green.

Image
After the flood (August 22, 2018). By NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, “Kerala before and after the floods.” File; Public Domain, original. The images are false-color, which makes flood water appear dark blue. Vegetation is bright green.

The rain
Even in normal years, Kerala receives an annual average of 2924.33 millimetres of rainfall, almost four times the annual average rainfall in the United States of America. Kerala’s total landmass is a mere 39,000 square kilometres, while that of the United States of America is 9,525,067 square kilometres.

This year, Kerala received much more rain in a very short period of time. The densest rainfall comes during the Monsoon season, which runs from June to September. From 1 June to 21 August, 2,387 mm of rain fell–41% higher than the normal rainfall. More dramatically, between 1 August and 19 August, 758.6mm of rain fell–164% higher than the norm. Even more dramatically, between 9 August and 15 August, Kerala received 257% excess rain. Nothing like this has been seen before. Idukki district, one of Kerala’s fourteen districts, was drenched by 679 mm of rainwater–447.6% higher than the normal rainfall. This was the worst hit district in the state.

As a result of this torrential downpour, massive flooding and landslides struck every district in the state. The state has 80 dams, of which 42 are large dams. As water levels rose alarmingly and as the dams threatened to overflow, the government had to release water in a controlled fashion.

Rescue and relief operations

Image
Rescue operations at North Paravur, Ernakulam district. Credit: Arun Raj/Deshabhimani.

As flood waters inundated roads, homes and buildings in towns and villages across the State, people had to be evacuated in large numbers. Kerala has a high population density of 860 persons per square kilometre–more than double the national average–which compounded the gravity of the problem. People marooned in homes surrounded by water were rescued in mammoth rescue operations led by the State government, with the help of the central forces. In Kuttanad, a region in south-central Kerala which lies mostly below the sea level, about 250,000 people were evacuated in three days.

Relief camps were set up near the flood-affected areas. On 21 August, less than a week after the heaviest spell of rain, 1.45 million people had to take shelter in more than 3300 relief camps in the State. The numbers came down in the subsequent days as people began returning to their homes, most of which were damaged by the savage floods.

The rescue and relief mission has been widely hailed as one of the best in the history of such operations in India. The resoluteness and efficiency displayed by the Kerala government, led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)], has come in for widespread praise.

The State government’s preparations to face the impending flood began in July. The people were alerted about the rising water levels in the dams, and those whose homes were certain to be submerged if dam waters were released were evacuated. Blockages downstream were cleared. The rains from August 8 onwards, however, surpassed all predictions of the India Meteorological Department.

The people of Kerala rose up to the occasion to confront the challenge head-on. The State government mobilised its entire machinery, with top civil servants, ministers and local governments having been entrusted with responsibilities by July. More than 40,000 police officers and 3,200 firefighters from across the state played a leading role in the rescue operations. However, the scale of the challenge was such that the generous help of the central forces were needed.

This is where the CPI(M)-led state government had to battle the intense cynicism and hostility of the BJP-led government at the centre. The number of armed forces and equipment that the central government sent to Kerala turned out to be much less than promised, and hence grossly inadequate. The State government asked for 5,000 soldiers, 100 helicopters and 650 motor boats for the rescue operations, but even by the morning of 18 August, at the peak of the rescue operations, the centre had allotted just 400 soldiers, 20 helicopters and 30 boats.

The ingenuity and power of the mass movements of Kerala came into the picture at this moment. Kerala is the State in India with the best human development indicators, and the left-wing mass organisations of Kerala and the communist-led governments they brought to power are credited with the State’s achievements in fields such as education and health. The ethos of self-reliance and mutual aid has been developed over decades, through literacy campaigns and through cooperatives, through local social organisations and through trade unions and peasant unions.

The very same mass organisations–student and youth organisations, trade unions and peasant unions–mobilised their members and supporters to organise relief missions. So did a large number of other political organisations and civil society organisations. Massive numbers of young people plunged into rescue work with all their might as volunteers in control rooms at 14 district administration headquarters and in flooded areas across the State.

Thousands of Keralites–both within Kerala and across the globe–used the internet and phone networks to collect information and GPS coordinates about people stranded in different places and passed on this information to the control rooms and rescue teams throughout the State. Several groups helped set up online databases using crowd-sourced databases. They augmented the Kerala government’s website keralarescue.in. For instance, the 40,000 member-strong Kerala Shaastra Saahitya Parishad (KSSP–the Kerala Science Literature Movement), which is India’s largest popular science movement, began its own website, unitekerala.com. Once the rescue efforts were completed, these websites were used to organise the collection and distribution of relief material.

The role played by the fishermen who joined the rescue mission with their fishing boats was crucial. Thousands of them, mostly from the southern districts, came into the flooded regions, with more than 4500 boats. Mobilised by trade unions and the State Government’s Fisheries Department, they waded into the waters even late at night, when everybody else had returned from the rescue operations. It is estimated that more than 70,000 people were rescued by fishermen. The State government undertook to repair their damaged boats, and instructed local governments to give them a grand welcome when they come home.

The State government itself organised a function to thank the fishermen on 29 August. The thousands who attended the programme broke into thunderous applause as the Chief Minister and others who spoke at the function saluted the fisherfolk and described their heroic services.

The relief effort has become an occasion where the camaraderie between people belonging to different religious communities in Kerala have come to the fore. Many Hindu temples, Christian churches, and Muslim mosques threw open their facilities to host people of all communities. They functioned as relief camps, and in many cases, made arrangements for people from other religious communities to hold worship. This is a counterpoint to the areas where the far-right BJP has cultivated religious hatred, pushing an anti-Muslim and anti-agenda deep into society.

Image
An elderly woman being rescued from a flooded house at Companyppady, Aluva. Credit: K Ravikumar/Deshabhimani.

Kerala’s Chief Minister held daily press conferences during the peak days of the rescue operations, outlining the things that have been done already and the tasks that are to be carried out, along with giving essential instructions. The press conference became a much-awaited event during those days, being watched by hundreds of thousands of people on TV channels and on the Chief Minister’s Facebook page. Pinarayi Vijayan’s calm demeanour and the decisiveness with which he addressed concerns and questions contributed immensely to soothe the nerves of the people at a time when panic could have spread rapidly.

Large numbers of people die every year in India due to natural disasters, such as floods. The death toll in the floods would have been far bigger had it been not for the formidable efforts of the people and the government of Kerala. Although the cases are not strictly comparable, it might be worth noting that the floods in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand in the year 2013, which were triggered by less than half the amount of rainfall that Kerala witnessed this year, killed more than 5,700 people–more than ten times the figure in Kerala.

Hostility of the RSS-BJP
The rescue operation is only one part of the process. Relief and rehabilitation are another. The State government realised that it would need assistance to collect resources for the relief work and for the eventual rehabilitation of the people. The government requested that people from around the world contribute generously to the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund. The mass organisations and the youth who were involved in rescue work enthusiastically got involved in running relief camps and in collecting, transporting and organising relief material.

While help began pouring in from across the globe, India’s far-right organisations–the BJP and its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)–went on an extensive campaign to scuttle the relief efforts. If the far-right could hamper the Left Democratic Front government’s relief efforts, then it would be able to score political points–regardless of the human toll that such political callousness would require.

Image
Rescue operations at North Paravur. Credit: Arun Raj/Deshabhimani.

Not only did the BJP-led government in New Delhi refuse to send sufficient number of central forces for the rescue operations, it also has been reluctant to allot funds for relief and rebuilding. The centre has so far only sanctioned ₹6 billion as aid to Kerala, while the losses are estimated to be more than ₹250 billion.

As if the antagonism of the centre were not sufficient, the RSS-BJP actively propagated fake news to try and undermine the rescue and relief efforts of the State government and the people. One video circulated by the RSS’s social media handles involved a man in Army uniform claiming that Kerala’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was not allowing the army to work in flood relief operations. Following this, the Army itself came out with a clarification, stating that the man in the video is an imposter spreading disinformation about the rescue and relief efforts.

The RSS-BJP also actively campaigned to discourage people from donating to the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund. In a viral audio clip circulated by RSS networks, Suresh Kochattil, a member of the BJP’s IT cell, claimed that the flood-affected people in Kerala are rich. He sought to spread misinformation about fund utilisation from the Relief Fund, and asked people to donate to an organisation called ‘Sewa Bharati’ instead. Unsurprisingly, Sewa Bharati happens to be an RSS-affiliated organisation that is involved in spreading hatred, in religious-sectarian riots, and has even been accused of being entangled in a child trafficking scandal.

Image
Flooded house at Kainakari panchayat, Kuttanad. Credit: Sivaprasad MA/Deshabhimani.

Post-flood rehabilitation
The people who returned to their homes from relief camps and the homes of friends and family saw their houses filled with debris and wreckage left behind by the deluge. In many cases, the houses suffered damages to their wiring, and even their structures. Other public and private buildings and facilities faced similar problems, especially that of muck that needed to be cleaned up.

Out of an estimated 371,203 flooded houses, 194,805 were already cleaned by 26 August, less than a week after the rescue operations were completed. Nearly 600 tonnes of waste had been removed from the worst-hit regions in seven districts by that time.

The challenge was particularly daunting in Kuttanad, which had the largest number of houses affected by flooding. A major rice-growing region with scenic backwaters, Kuttanad is spread over the Alappuzha and Kottayam districts. The rice fields and most houses lie below the sea level, as the region was reclaimed from lakes over centuries. The flood waters had destroyed the bunds (small dams) which protect the rice fields and houses from the lake waters. The bunds had to be rebuilt, water had to be pumped out and houses cleaned. The operation was of crucial importance to ensure that people could return to their homes and to prevent the outbreak of epidemics. It was a Herculean task.

A call for volunteers was issued on 24 August by Dr. TM Thomas Isaac, Kerala’s Finance Minister who is a legislator from Kuttanad. Huge pumps were brought in to pump out the water. About 60,000 volunteers–more than 10,000 from the CPI(M) alone–participated in the collective clean-up effort, named ‘Operation Rehabilitation’. Students, agricultural workers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers and volunteers from other political organisations and institutions joined in large numbers. They went from house to house, removing mud, cleaning up, using high-pressure pumps wherever necessary, and disinfecting the premises. Power and water connections were inspected and restored. Damaged doors and windows were repaired.

Mass organisations all across the State were involved in rehabilitation work. Ministers themselves were part of the work in many places to motivate more people to join in. Various civil society and political organisations pitched in with volunteers and resources. The left-wing Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), with 5 million members in the State was also involved in the rescue and relief mission and deployed ‘Youth Brigades’ to clean up houses. The Kerala unit of the All-India Agricultural Workers Union and the State’s famous cooperatives, such as the Uralungal Labour Contract Cooperative Society (ULCCS), also contributed volunteers for the rehabilitation work.

Image
Flood scene from Kuttanad. Credit: Sivaprasad MA/Deshabhimani.

Exemplary work was done by the Kudumbashree mission, a massive poverty eradication and women’s empowerment initiative started by the CPI(M)-led government in 1998. P. Sainath has said that it ‘could well be the greatest gender justice and poverty reduction programme in the world’. ‘Around 4,00,000 women of Kudumbashree self-mobilised across Kerala to do [post-flood] relief work, including collecting, packing and distributing relief material, cleaning up public spaces and private homes, and counselling affected families and putting them in touch with concerned authorities’, Brinda Karat, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and former General Secretary of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) wrote in an article in The Hindu newspaper on 17 September. Kudumbashree groups cleaned up 11,300 public places including schools, hospitals, local government buildings and child care centres. 38,000 Kudumbashree members opened up their own homes to shelter families rendered homeless by floods. Kudumbashree members also contributed 74 million rupees to the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund. ‘This scale of voluntary relief work by women is quite unprecedented by any standard’, Karat wrote.

Resource mobilisation
Rebuilding the flood-ravaged State would require enormous resources. The federal system of India is such that the bulk of the tax revenues collected from the States go to the central government. Various restrictions brought in by successive central governments during the neoliberal era have constrained the resource mobilisation capacity of the States. Furthermore, the centre has also imposed restrictions on the amount of money that the States are allowed to borrow from the market–a State government’s total borrowings cannot exceed 3 percent of the gross state domestic product. The refusal of the BJP-led central government to sanction sufficient amounts for relief and rehabilitation in Kerala becomes especially egregious in this context.

Image
Flood level mark on black board, DD Sabha High School, Karimpadam, North Paravur. Credit: Navaneeth Krishnan S. By Edukeralam – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

The central government even put up roadblocks to prevent financial assistance from coming in from other countries. The government of the United Arab Emirates–a country with a large number of expatriate Keralites–offered a sum of ₹7 billion as aid to Kerala. But the central government refused permission for the amount to be transferred, citing unsubstantiated claims about ‘existing policy’ that allowed meeting requirements for relief and rehabilitation through domestic efforts alone. In fact, the decision, apparently driven by misplaced ‘national pride’, went contrary to existing central government policy. The National Disaster Management Plan cleared by the BJP government itself in 2015 says: ‘If the national government of another country voluntarily offers assistance as a goodwill gesture in solidarity with the disaster victims, the Central Government may accept the offer’.

Kerala’s resource mobilisation efforts have had to overcome such antagonism on the part of the central government. The State government has demanded that the borrowing limits be raised, and is exploring all possible options to mobilise resources from various channels, including raising taxes. People, including the large population of expatriate Keralites and the people of other States in India, have been contributing generously to the Chief Minister’s Fund. The State government has also floated a ‘salary challenge’ whereby people are encouraged to donate one month’s income to the Chief Minister’s Fund.

Image
Woman transporting utensils from her flooded house at Kainakari panchayat, Kuttanad. Credit: Sivaprasad MA/Deshabhimani.

Towards a better, sustainable future
The post-flood reconstruction in Kerala has also been an occasion when serious debates and discussions on the future of development in the region are taking place.

Extraordinarily high rainfall such as this year’s has occurred before in Kerala. The heaviest rainfall in recent history was in 1924, which resulted in the ‘Great Flood of 99’ (in reference to the year 1099 in the Malayalam calendar). Another mighty deluge, the great flood of 1341 (Gregorian calendar), is believed to have resulted in colossal changes to the State’s geography. Muziris, the biggest port of the time is suspected to have been destroyed by the floods that year, and in turn, another port which took shape in Kochi rose to become the most important one.

But climate change has resulted in the frequency of extreme weather events that are increasing all over the world in the recent years. Kerala has to be prepared to confront such emergencies in the future as well, with better systems for forecasting natural disasters and for hazard mitigation.

Encroachments in flood plains and unscientific constructions have contributed to worsening the damage caused by floods in Kerala. There is more awareness today than ever before that reconstruction has to take place in a manner that will minimise such possibilities in the future. At the same time, the restoration of working people’s livelihoods has to be given prime importance as well. The living standards of people in Kerala are, on an average, better than those of other States in India, but they are still much below the living standards in developed countries. Material deprivation still exists on a substantial scale.

The challenge is to balance the need to improve the living conditions of people with the need to preserve the environment, in the context of the limited policy space and legislative powers available to a State government in India. There is recognition of the need for more sustainable ways of constructing buildings, minimising damage to the environment, and for more social control over land use, housing, and extractive industries such as stone quarrying. Left leaders have been talking about nationalising quarrying in the hilly regions, something that was already part of the election manifesto of the Left Democratic Front (the ruling coalition in Kerala, led by the CPI(M)). Comprehensive plans are needed to protect the highlands, the midlands and the coastal regions. Discussions are also taking place regarding the need to adopt healthier practices for housing in the densely populated State.

The manner in which the people of Kerala have confronted the biggest natural disaster in 94 years, through the sheer strength of their unity, collective action and social organisation, is truly remarkable. Through democratic discussions and organised efforts driven by a vision that keeps in mind their own bestinterests, they hope to build a future that will preserve past gains and make further advances in a sustainable fashion. With a fraction of the resources, Kerala was able to far outweigh the success of other relief efforts because of years of community building and investment in everyday people and public infrastructure and services.

Kerala’s example suggests the kind of world we would like to live in–a world that places the needs of people before profit, of sustainable development before corporate profiteering, of a people-centred agenda before disaster capitalism.

https://mronline.org/2018/10/19/how-ker ... a-century/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Fri Dec 07, 2018 12:28 pm

Building an active party
Capitalism creates its own gravediggers. We must organise them into a mighty liberating army.
Party statement

Wednesday 5 December 2018

Image

This text is an excerpt from the cadre development committee report given to the party’s eighth congress in September.

The growth and development of the CPGB-ML is noticed by all the small political groups that exist in Britain and collectively refer to themselves as ‘the left’. In this small pond, overpopulated by an exotic array of politically toxic specimens, we are the ‘left group’ that causes the most anxiety and fear amongst the others.

Whilst the blind remnants of the revisionist and Trotskyite movement of the 20th century continue to tie their fortunes ever more closely to social democracy, the conditions for the seeding of the roots of a Marxist-Leninist party present themselves in abundance in Britain.

On Brexit, on imperialist war, on the causes of terrorism, on the question of immigration, on the basic question of how the working class needs to wage economic struggle unshackled from the disastrous influence of social democracy, we are the only political party in the country to have answers to the most pressing issues facing British workers.

Whilst our ideas are certainly not immediately popular with vast swathes of politically ignorant workers, they do have increasing currency amongst those workers who find themselves in struggle, and are causing mounting anxiety, revulsion and annoyance amongst our political opponents.

The divide between us sharpens and we can expect greater hostility and opposition to our work in all fields, whether it be on the picket lines, at anti-war meetings, or on May Day and other labour movement events and rallies.

Our organisational challenges are acute. We must reassess the viability of our present methods of work, reflect on the political activity we carry out and its usefulness in a concrete historical context. Making a critique of our work and then assessing our capacity for new forms of work is a difficult task for a small party of volunteers with limited resources, both physical and financial.

A basic principle of dialectics is that there is no such thing as abstract truth; truth is always concrete. Forms of organisation, alongside forms of political work, must be suited to concrete reality.

As the party grows, no matter how small that growth is, new opportunities for work present themselves – work which ten years ago would have seemed an impossibility.

An important factor contributing towards our growth since 2014 has been that we are building an active party and have not allowed a situation to develop where significant sections of the party have become inactive.

It is inevitable in any party there will be churn – that some bad people will join and some good people will leave. What destroys a party is allowing the vitality of the healthy part to be polluted by the unhealthy.

Developing strong cadres
The party that purges itself strengthens itself. Our party is a voluntary union – those who cannot stay the course, even if we wish that they could, must not be allowed to sow division, despondency and negativity, but must be assisted in leaving the party in an orderly and respectful manner.

Those who demand that the majority must follow the desires of the minority; those who cannot learn to work in a collective manner, must understand that we welcome all support but will not be held to ransom over any single issue.

In an organised party, a split is inevitable if the minority cannot subordinate itself to the majority. Scandalmongering must be resisted and overcome; it is essential to create a political situation in which there is both centralism and democracy, both discipline and freedom, both unity of will and personal ease of mind and liveliness. We do not need, nor can we accommodate individualism or pessimism.

Our congress is a place where the active members of the party make decisions about the future direction of the organisation; it is not a place for all and sundry; it is not a mass political rally to which we invite everyone.

Similarly, the desire to grow and to be big must not develop into a trend where politically and socially unstable individuals are allowed to join our ranks without the necessary training, supervision and oversight. Not everybody who wanted to be at this congress is here today, and that is a sign of our strength and our growth.

Collective and individual study is paramount to ensure members are able to understand and communicate the party’s positions on various issues, especially in these politically confusing times, and furthermore to develop into worker-theoreticians capable of producing analysis and propaganda for the party.

Study classes and individual members should ensure that they are following the party’s educational programme and that they are in this way acquiring a sound and broad fundamental knowledge of Marxism Leninism.

Building a revolutionary party
Lenin observed that “the character of any organisation is naturally and inevitably determined by the content of its activity”. Our party, despite its relatively small size, carries out important political work. (VI Lenin, What is To Be Done?, 1901, Chapter 4)

What form does this take? Are we able to lead strikes or to organise demonstrations that challenge state power? At the present moment, clearly not. But it is our duty to develop a strategy capable of moving our organisation from its current level of development to that point.

Our scope of work has until now been largely restricted to theoretical and propaganda work. This represents one of our greatest strengths. An all-round understanding of Marxism Leninism and its application to the contemporary political problems faced by British workers and the wider toiling masses worldwide, languishing as humanity is under the wage-slavery imposed by monopoly capitalism, is what marks us out from so many groups, larger in size but impotent in the face of their pressing tasks.

But we cannot allow this great strength – which has made our small organisation a bastion of the revolutionary movement today – to blind us to our own significant shortcomings. We must not be content with resting on our ‘laurels’. We must relentlessly pursue the path that will lead to higher and broader development of working-class consciousness and set the British workers on the path to an understanding of their true task: to take power.

Our propaganda seeks to explain a multitude of ideas to our audience, and the best method for this has been our newspapers, our excellent new website (rightly regarded as the ‘best on the left’) and, increasingly, our YouTube channel and other social media.

Agitational work differs from propaganda work in that it attempts to communicate our ideas creatively and powerfully, but centred around a single issue that is of great significance to the masses at that particular moment, so winning support and sympathy for the party from a broad group of workers.

Any comrade who has attempted to give a message of greeting to striking workers at the gates or expose the crimes of imperialism in an anti-war meeting will understand the pitfalls of trying to say too much. Agitational work, like agitational slogans, must be pithy, accessible, and clear.

Our output of agitational material has greatly increased in recent years and this can be observed in our huge increase in production and distribution of leaflets, and the accompanying frustrations of branches that have too few and the growing task of our print workers, who have been run ragged by an increasingly hungry party machine.

The topic, the subject, the matter at hand in these materials varies greatly, but increasingly the practical work of most of our groups boils down to distribution of socialist literature amongst as broad a section of British society as we are able to reach. The trend is that our branches demand leaflets. It is influenced by many factors but it in no way diminishes the role of the newspapers; they each play vastly different roles.

How could any party member or advanced worker hope to be politically educated on the basis of party leaflets alone? How could the party hope to provide ample literature, giving the widest possible political exposures for the broadest sections of British society through the production of Proletarian and Lalkar alone?

Because of our commitment to Marxist-Leninist analysis, we have inherited, and continue to develop, our press and publications work. This work is now capable of unfolding on a greater scale on its present basis, and should comrades step forward who are determined to learn and master the print technique, there is no reason that we cannot double our output.

With the correct attitude and leadership, every party group is capable of contributing towards a mighty distribution of socialist literature – outside schools and workplaces, shops and transport hubs, on picket lines and during elections.

Of course, we understand the limitations of leafleting and aspire to much greater work, but taken in the context of the current political climate and soberly assessing the forces at our disposal, we should aim to carry out such work on the largest possible scale.

It is inconceivable that without this mass agitational activity British workers, currently dominated by bourgeois ideology and lacking even the rudiments of class consciousness in many instances, would be capable of raising themselves to participating in a revolutionary movement against the bourgeois state.

Our agitational work has been most successful when it has focused on issues that affect the broad masses. Highlighting the ongoing NHS privatisation, campaigning around the EU referendum, and creating support leaflets for striking workers that also expose social-democratic treachery during industrial disputes have all been political exposures carried out on a broad basis.

The continuing improvement of such targeted leaflets and political exposures gives our party the opportunity to communicate to huge numbers of people.

The coming period, with the possibility of a Corbyn government, the ever-present threat of war and mutual annihilation, the continuing deterioration (no matter how slowly) of living standards in the imperialist countries, present avenues of huge opportunity for a Marxist-Leninist political party.

The global financial crisis rolls on, and if it is the contention of the Thatcherite libertarians that “the rising tide (of capitalist economy) raises all boats”, benefiting rich and poor alike, then it is our duty to point out to the masses that the tsunami of monopoly capitalist crisis of overproduction will in fact sink rich and poor alike – bringing billions of our fellow workers poverty, insecurity, starvation, disease, misery, environmental catastrophe and death.

Wealthy nations like Britain cannot escape this crisis, any more than can wealthy individuals (much as they delude themselves) or any other nation, except through collective solutions – and that means putting power in the hands of working people, whose interest it is to solve them.

Mobilising disenfranchised youth
Britain’s youth face a future in which jobs are scarce, insecure and underpaid.

The Blairite mantra ‘Education, education, education’ and universal university education has been shown up as a hollow phrase under capitalist economic conditions, with £27,000-£54,000 the cost of fees for three to six-year university courses. Add on living expenses, and university students now walk away with £100,000 of debt – money that, given the depressed state of wages – they will have great difficulty recouping in the workplace.

Unemployment, rising house prices and rents mean even the children of formerly reasonably well-off so-called ‘middle-class’ workers are unable to reproduce the lifestyle of their parents’ generation. There is an increasingly large pool of disenfranchised and angry working-class youth who have no stake in the system.

Our capitalist masters wish to promote the idea that the system’s failings are in fact the individual failings of each worker who is struggling. It is our duty to enlighten and recruit these working-class youth, rather than letting them fall prey to depression, despondency and despair, or be led down the right-wing blind alley of sectarian or supremacist ideology.

Our young comrades must organise effectively and contribute to the production of material that brings this message home to their fellow working-class youth. Our unmatched Marxist analysis must continue, and cannot be dependent upon older comrades for its production.

Marxist dialectics subjects all phenomena to the power of human reason, including the realms of human history and contemporary society. No problem is insoluble to the rising class armed with Marxist understanding and organised by a Leninist party.

All comrades must take responsibility for advancing their education and bringing on their family, friends, comrades and contacts. Young comrades should aim to organise, to lead, to speak, to recruit, to write and to teach. There is no better way of learning than applying your knowledge.

We have increasingly seen that workers who take our literature and study our message return to the party as supporters and can progress to become members and cadres. A great mass of agitational material will therefore supplement this process, ensuring that which we all desire – a professional, organised, disciplined party, trusted by the broadest possible section of the working class, and ready to use the inevitable unfolding crisis of capitalism to fuel the development of a militant working-class movement.

We must position ourselves to be the trusted voice of workers in struggle, wherever that struggle is taking place.

Capitalism creates its own gravediggers. We must organise them into a mighty liberating army.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Mon Jan 07, 2019 12:18 pm

Central Trade Unions call for a Nationwide General Strike on 8-9 January 2019 against the anti-people, anti-worker, anti-national policies of the Modi Govt.
Image

International solidarity extended by World Federation of trade unions, towards the #AllIndiaStrike on 8 & 9 th January, 2019.
Image

All India General Strike: Workers to protest NDA government policies on January 8-9
Image

CourtesyCPI(M) Puducherry@cpimpuducherry

*******************************

Say no to Anti people, anti worker policies of the Modi Govt
Image
Image
Image
Image

Participate in All India Strike. Say No to privatisation
Image
Image
Image
Image

Courtesy CPI (M)@cpimspeak
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 08, 2019 6:46 pm

Workers, from all sectors– organised, both public and private, in the government and quasi government sectors, scheme workers, unorganised sector workers have reported to be participating in the strike across the country. Here are glimpses from first Day



Courtesy CPI(M) @cpi(m)
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Wed Jan 09, 2019 3:34 pm

Indian police detain communist leaders during largest-ever strike

Image
Police detain Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sujan Chakraborty in Kolkata today

COMMUNIST Party of India (Marxist) leaders from West Bengal, Sujan Chakraborty and Anadi Sahoo were detained by police during India’s largest-ever national strike today.

They were arrested in Kolkata as an estimated 200 million took part in the first day of two days of action across India involving at least 10 trade unions.

The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (Citu) congratulated workers on their “historic” action which involved workers from public and private sectors, including the banking industry.

Citu general secretary Tapan Sen said the “unprecedented expanse and the active participation of the workers in the two days’ strike is a clear indication of the extent of anger and resentment of the workers against the neoliberal policies [of the government] and the attacks on their working and living conditions perpetrated by these policies.”

The strike action was called in protest at the “anti-worker and anti-people policies of the Modi government,” including increased prices, privatisation of state assets and amendments to labour laws which trade unions warned were designed to “impose conditions of slavery on working people.”

Unions proposed a list of 12 demands to tackle inflation, rising unemployment and falling wages and pensions which they said would help boost India’s struggling economy.

Strikes were solidly supported with schools, factories and major industries shut down and mass rallies and demonstrations in most towns and cities across the country.

Transport was shut down in Kerala with those on strike blocking trains and private and state-owned buses were unable to operate due to mass demonstrations on the roads.

Pilgrims to the Sabarimala Lord Ayyappa shrine, who were trying to reach Pamba base camp to begin their trek to the hill shrine, were left stranded at stations across the state.

Authorities responded by making large-scale arrests of those on strike, including leading members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in West Bengal.

Mr Chakraborty said he was held by “police with anti-terrorist equipment … along with comrades arrested from Jadavpur.” He said they were being taken to a central lock-up, although he insisted that the “struggle will continue” describing the events as “battlefield Kolkata.”

Mr Sen said: “This strike is a clear warning from the working class and toiling people of India that they were not going to take lying down the attacks on their basic rights and living conditions.

“It is a strong warning that policies that mortgaging the country to corporate interests will not be tolerated.”

Further strikes are due to take place tomorrow.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article ... ver-strike
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 10, 2019 3:28 pm

In India, 200 million people came out against the anti-labor policy of the government

Since January 8, the trade unions and left organizations of India have brought about 200 million people to the streets for a two-day protest rally, people are demanding an increase in the minimum wage and pensions, are seeking social guarantees from the government, jobs for youth.

“The government pursues an anti-economic and anti-labor policy that has forced us to start this strike. For example, commodity prices are rising, and even essential goods are not available in stores at a fair price, and the government doesn’t seem to do anything about it,” the general said. Secretary of the Association of Bankers of India Venkatachalam in the media.

The protesters claim that the government has forgotten about protecting the interests of the workers, and peasant and farming associations began to join the action. Fixed and clashes with the police, blocked the railways and roads. Workers and peasants united against the government. This is reminiscent of events a century ago, but how will the bourgeois class in India respond to such speeches?

Doctor of Historical Sciences, left-wing politician Vyacheslav Tetekin believes that the protests in India are not due to "local flavor" - rather, it is a manifestation of the global trend. Recall that in the republic everything began, as in France, with a strike against the rapidly rising prices for gasoline.

Image


"India is a very important example of resistance," Tetekin said in an interview with Nakanune.RU . Because right-wing forces are now in power there, the government of the Indian National Congress pursued a more rational policy, and now the right-wing government is pursuing a policy of tightening the screws. "Therefore, the resistance of India is very strong, there are two communist parties, and they are quite popular, they are constantly represented in parliament. That is, India is a country where communists play ie a very significant role, the idea of social justice there is very strong, this is due to a large protest, many unexpected. "

In September last year, the opposition Indian National Congress Party went on strike. In October, four hundred gas stations took part in the protest and stopped their work for 24 hours - activists demanded a reduction in excise taxes on key fuels. Now the workers of trade unions have been joined by employees of the industrial, banking, insurance and transport sectors, students and even representatives of the federal media spoke out in support of the protests, because the rise in prices for goods and services applies to everyone, like lack of jobs, small pensions and the minimum wage so experts explain the mass protests in India.

Image

Recall that during the French authorities following similar protests concessions, officially introduced a moratorium on price increases for gasoline and diesel fuel for six months, President Emmanuel Macron in an address to the citizens before the new year announced an increase in the minimum wage to 100 euros per the expense of the state treasury and the abolition of overtime hours social charges from 2019, and also asked employers to pay New Year bonuses to employees.

Russians after the New Year holidays faced a total price increase - experts call this the first fruits of the reforms coming into force on January 1, in particular, the increase in the value-added tax from 18 to 20%, which will also lead to a rise in prices for goods and services. In the Russian regions , gasoline began to rise again , motorists noticed an increase in prices on the night of January 5th. The Federation Council is considering an initiative to increase the minimum wage, but the minimum wage is unlikely to grow, there is no money for it .

Author:
Elena Rychkova

https://www.nakanune.ru/news/2019/1/9/22529409/

Google Translator
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 10, 2019 6:21 pm

"If you do not interfere in politics, politics will eventually interfere in your life".- Vladimir Lenin

Graffiti in Thrippunithura, Kerala, India

Image

Courtesy Praveen Kumar @ComradePraveenK

I should like to see what's going on in Kerala.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10592
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: India

Post by blindpig » Sat Jan 12, 2019 3:54 pm

50,000 garment workers go on strike in Bangladesh
Updated / Wednesday, 9 Jan 2019 11:44

Image
Bangladeshi garment workers block a road during a demonstration to demand higher wages in Dhaka

One striking garment worker has been killed and 50 others injured in Bangladesh after police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at around 5,000 protesters in Dhaka.

Water cannon was also used to disperse 10,000 strikers in a fourth day of industrial action who were blocking a major highway in Savar.

Around 50,000 workers have walked out of their factories, which make clothes for retailers such as H&M, Walmart, Tesco and Aldi, demanding higher wages.

Image

Image


More than 4,500 textile and clothing factories are affected, which made more than €27bn worth of apparel last year.

The protests are the first major test for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina since winning a fourth term in office.

Image
Sheikh Hasina casts her ballot in the general election in December
The election was marred by violence, thousands of arrests and allegations of vote rigging and intimidation.

Bangladesh is the world's second-largest garment maker after China.

The country raised the minimum monthly wage for the garment sector's four million workers by 51% to 8,000 Taka, or approx €90, from December.

But senior workers say their raise was less than this and unions say the hike fails to compensate for price rises in recent years.

They warn that more strikes may be on the cards and could spread.

The impoverished nation’s garment workers are some of the lowest paid in the world.

Image

A protesting worker at Kalshi said that they "won’t leave the road until our demand is met".

Another worker said that manufacturers have hired local musclemen to stop workers in other factories from joining the protest.

Image

The protests came despite a move by the country's authorities to set up a committee to review wages.

The industry also has a poor workplace safety record, with the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory complex in Savar killing more than 1,130 people in 2013 in one of the world's worst industrial disasters.


A memorial in 2014 to remember those who died in the Rana Plaza collapse
Following the disaster, major retailers formed two safety groups to push through crucial reforms in the factories, prompting manufacturers to plough in more than $1 billion in safety upgrades.

https://www.rte.ie/amp/1022163/?__twitt ... ssion=true
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

Post Reply