There can be no doubt whatsoever that these weapons and ammunition were actually used by Israel in Gaza; in fact missile fragments labelled “Made in India” were found in a UN-run school in Nuseirat in Gaza sheltering displaced Palestinians, after an Israeli raid on it that killed 33 persons.

It is clearly not a political agitation; it clearly has no “leaders”. The Bharatiya Janata Party is adept at dealing with “leaders”, by dividing them, by defaming them, by corrupting them, by buying them up, and by threatening them with the Enforcement Directorate and the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act; had this agitation been led by “leaders” it would not have gone as far as it did.

It is not surprising that the only economies in modern times that have been characterized by full employment have been the Soviet Union and the socialist economies of eastern Europe.

An amendment to the National Food Security Act (NFSA) under which the AAY operates is about to be enacted under which instead of 35 kilogrammes per household per month, 7 kilogrammes per person per month would henceforth be distributed, up to a maximum of 35 kilogrammes per household per month.

Pre-capitalist societies even in normal times have been characterized by a degree of deference by the common people towards the intelligentsia; this was strengthened by the role played by the intelligentsia during the anti-colonial struggle and the period of post-independence dirigisme in countries like India.

Amazingly the world trading arrangements are such that the inferior mode of adjustment is carried out whenever there are imbalances, and not the superior mode of adjustment. This is the irrationality of the world trading arrangements under which we live.

What is true of the world economy as a whole holds true for countries like India which have enormous labour reserves inherited from the colonial times, reserves hidden away in particular in vast agrarian sectors.

The objective of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is to establish a Hindu state (“Hindu Rashtra”) in India.

Today India has a level of income inequality higher than at any time in the previous one hundred years, and one of the highest in the world

The Indian economy at present is in the grip of a serious crisis, manifested above all in a sharp fall of the rupee and an acceleration of inflation.

The government may appease speculators by offering some blandishments in the form of a higher interest rate (may be on some specific government bonds), or some tax concessions, as an earlier government had done in 2013 when there had been a similar speculative attack on the rupee; but it will have an immediate adverse effect on the working people by cutting them out from fiscal resources or subjecting them to the recessionary effects of an interest rate hike.

Since capital is globalized under neo-liberalism while labour remains confined to specific countries, a higher rate of accumulation is supposed to require the creation of a more attractive environment for capital compared to other countries; and lower wages constitute one major component of this more attractive environment.

Trump’s strategy envisages the U.S. extricating itself from the neo-liberal regime while forcing the global south to remain entrapped within it.

Certain features associated with neo-fascism have manifested themselves quite clearly during its ascendancy in India.

Since private institutions, even the most reputed and expensive ones, are primarily concerned with catering to the job market and not with imparting knowledge with a critical perspective, what we have in effect is a destruction of critical thought, which means fundamentally a destruction of education.

Capitalism is invariably hostile to any collective praxis against it, even if this collective praxis takes the form of just trade union action.

Oil prices have shot up in terms of U.S. dollars, and this in turn has been accompanied by a depreciation of other currencies, especially Asian currencies, vis-à-vis the dollar, causing even higher inflation in the periphery compared to the metropolitan capitalist centres.

The present situation however also provides a great opportunity to move away from the neo-liberal regime.

Since the beneficiaries of the oil price rise will be immediately holding their windfall profits quite substantially as bank deposits that create no direct demand for goods and services, while the losers from inflation will have to curtail their total demand for goods and services in real terms, such an inflation will have a depressing effect on the level of world aggregate demand, and hence will cause a recession in the world economy.

THE very concept of sovereignty of third world nations is now being sought to be abolished by imperialism in violation of all canons of international law, as is evident from the bombing of Iran by U.S. and Israel with the explicit objective of effecting a “regime change”.