Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Show us the money
The lead editorial in the latest issue of CPM mouthpiece People8217;s Democracy criticises Manmohan Singh8217;s strategy to tackle the financial crisis by increasing public spending to create infrastructure through public-private partnership. It says such a move may bolster profits for the private sector but the vast masses of people remain without economic power. 8220;This can be done only through the infusion of the public expenditures by the government on public works projects on a massive scale8221;, it notes.
BJP on the backfoot
An article by CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat criticises L. K. Advani for supporting Malegaon blast accused Sadhvi Pragya Thakur and says the BJP8217;s change of stance on this issue came at the behest of the RSS. Karat points out that on October 31, Advani had said that Pragya Thakur had nothing to do with the BJP and if she were found guilty, she should be punished. Now he has sought a judicial inquiry into the charges that she was tortured by the ATS and demanded that the team investigating the case be changed. The changed stance has come after the meeting of sadhus on November 16 in Panipat, also attended by BJP chief Rajnath Singh, RSS chief K.S. Sudharshan and VHP president Ashok Singhal.
Karat says the BJP8217;s 8216;anti-terrorist campaign8217; is targeted against Muslims but investigation into the Malegaon blasts case has exploded their 8220;carefully constructed8221; theory of only Muslims being terrorists. 8220;That is why the earlier reasonable reaction of Advani 8212; that if there were proof against anyone from the Sangh Parivar outfits, he or she should be punished 8212; got transformed into a stance that no one from a Hindutva organisation can be investigated for terrorist offences,8221; he argues.
The spectrum haunting us
Another article looks into the controversy over spectrum allocation. It says 8220;it was expected that the government would take some measures to either stop this scam or recover the loss to the exchequer of giving away spectrum in this way 8230;instead, the UPA Government argues that nothing could be done as selling or licenses are quite legal. And no attempt to ask the simple question of who caused such a huge loss to the country and how it can be prevented in the future8221;.
8220;The minimum this government should now do is to try and recover some of the losses and plug such losses for the future. It is a commentary on this government that it sees the plunder of Rs 60,000 crore from the exchequer as quite legaliquest;.Not only are there are no attempts to stop such sales being made, at the very least the government is not even thinking of imposing windfall tax to take away such ill-gotten gains by these fly-by-night telecom operators.
Compiled by Manoj C.G
