View from the Left

Ramayana in BJP8217;s MahabharataThe CPIM obviously enjoyed the BJP8217;s national executive meeting in Mumbai when leaders competed to ...

Ramayana in BJP8217;s Mahabharata

The CPIM obviously enjoyed the BJP8217;s national executive meeting in Mumbai when leaders competed to be named after heroes from the Ramayana. But, asks Sitaram Yechury in a front-page piece, didn8217;t Parasuram Vajpayee share an animosity with Ram Advani? And if Venkaiah Naidu was Hanuman would he have to keep feeding the elixir of life to Pramod Mahajan Lakshman? Yechury attacks the BJP for contradictions in public positions8212;going with the vote in the Rajya Sabha on expelling MPs in the cash-for-questions scam but walking out in the Lok Sabha, for instance. According to him, all that has remained constant with the BJP has been its ideology of a 8216;8216;fascistic Hindu rashtra8217;8217; dictated by the BJP. As for Advani, he paid the price for praising Jinnah, which was an ideological 8216;8216;impurity8217;8217;.

A mellow CITU

Desperate to find a toehold in the growing IT sector, trade unions are now trying a new approach by being less adversarial, as an article by CITU8217;s W R Varada Rajan shows. He says there is no reason why employees after unionisation will stop cooperating with employers to sustain work order. He also says there is no empirical evidence to suggest that foreign companies awarding BPO contracts are specifying the absence of trade unions as a precondition. According to him, a positive response would not be lacking from employees even after unionisation but it would lead to a 8216;8216;more dignified work place atmosphere8217;8217;. It would change the 8216;8216;fear-driven work environment8217;8217; where employees are never sure when they will be handed the pink slip.

Aid Lankan talks

An editorial in People8217;s Democracy advocates resumption of the peace process in Sri Lanka and suggests India8217;s crucial role would be to assist in bringing all parties to the dispute to the negotiating table. 8216;8216;As far as India is concerned, the interests of the Tamil minority are the crucial issue, but the LTTE cannot be identified as the sole custodian of Tamil interests,8217;8217; says the editorial. But the CPIM believes that President Rajapakse8217;s position during his election had raised doubts over a political settlement with autonomy for the Tamil-speaking areas within the framework of a united Sri Lanka. Incidentally, Left leaders had a meeting with the Sri Lankan president when he was in India recently.

US and them, Buddha way

The UPA Government must shun its policy of strategic partnership with the United States and must join hands with countries like Russia, China and Brazil and struggle against imperialism and globalisation sponsored by imperialism, said West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at the 40th anniversary of Ganashakti, the CPIM8217;s Bengal daily. However, the CM has been in a strategic partnership with the US himself as part of his plans to bring in investment to his state.