Opinion EURO PLEDGE

Taking a dig at the PM,the editorial says that he often uses the term “enlightened national interest” as the guiding principle for his government’s policies and asks whether pledging such “enlightened assistance” to developed countries meet India’s “enlightened national interests”.“Clearly,the PM is hoping that if India contributes to international finance capital… the eurozone’s recovery would create a new financial bubble whose expansion would benefit India… Little seems to have been learnt from the current crisis and recession… Bubbles always burst eventually… a fresh crisis will engulf the global economy,” it argues.

It states that rather than waiting for the eurozone to recover,the PM could have used the same resources for an expansion in public investment to build much-needed infrastructure.“This would have generated substantial additional employment in the country and would consequently have vastly expanded the aggregate domestic demand,” it concludes.

CPM OPPORTUNISM

The editorial in the CPM(ML) journal ML Update focuses on the “curious pattern” of political alignment that has emerged in the run up to the presidential election. It attacks the CPM for deciding to back the UPA candidate,Pranab Mukherjee. It claims that the CPM’s support for Mukherjee has come with the “most bankrupt of arguments” — that the presidential poll should be delinked from the political battle against neoliberal policies.

“For all those who had taken the CPM’s Kozhikode Congress call for ‘Left and democratic alternative’ as a sign of ‘leftward restoration and rectification’ within the party,the recent Kerala developments and the decision to support the Congress nominee in (the) presidential election should serve as an important ‘reality check’”,it says.

The editorial called this the “height of opportunist bankruptcy” and argued that the CPM argument of supporting the Congress to keep the BJP out of power was irrelevant. “The only principled course for the Left in this presidential election could have been to abstain,” it concludes.

WORRY OVER PAK

The CPI fears that the crisis in Pakistan,triggered by its Supreme Court’s decision to disqualify Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani,will destabilise a country already facing the threat of a takeover by religious fundamentalists and terrorist outfits. “An unstable Pakistan will have (an) adverse impact on the entire Southeast Asia,” says an editorial in party weekly New Age.

It notes that despite the 2008 terror attack in Mumbai,the Pakistan Peoples Party regime had shown flexibility in improving relations with India. “Turmoil and consequent takeover by either the army or religious fundamentalist forces upset the entire revival… This will also jeopardise the process of regional cooperation for political stabilisation and development of Afghanistan after the withdrawal

of NATO”. Compiled by Manoj C.G