India is poorer?
An article in Peoples Democracy claims that Indias liberalisation over the last two decades constitutes a resounding refutation of mainstream development theory. While GDP growth rate accelerated remarkably,it was accompanied by,the article insists,a striking increase in the incidence of absolute poverty as well a combination it says which no strand of bourgeois theory can explain.
It asserts that the international experience has been that per-capita foodgrain consumption taking both direct and indirect consumption together increases with per-capita real income until a fairly high level of income. And the same is true of calorie intake as well. If… the rise in per-capita real income is accompanied by a decline in per-capita foodgrain intake,then it must be that the income distribution within that country is worsening over that period to a point where the bulk of the population is becoming absolutely worse off even as the per-capita income,which is a mere average for all,is rising. This is exactly what has been happening in India during the last twenty years, Prabhat Patnaik claims.
Using traditional Marxist analysis,Patnaik says that where a capitalist sector co-exists with a pre-capitalist sector especially peasant agriculture the growth of the former entails a growing demand for goods from the latter. If output is not growing adequately,then an increase in demand from the capitalist sector can be met only out of existing output,by snatching away a part of it through various methods of primitive accumulation of capital. If this larger expropriation of output by the capitalist sector from the pre-capitalist sector were to be accompanied by a transfer of labour from latter to the former,then the availability of goods per capita in the latter would not shrink; but if there is no such transfer of labour then the per capita availability of goods in the latter would shrink,causing absolute impoverishment in the latter. he says,adding that India is experiencing such conditions.
Tripura is poorest
Another article in Peoples Democracy talks about a white paper that the Tripura government brought out recently on the 13th Finance Commissions award to the state. The article says the statistics in the paper demonstrate the states gross deprivation compared to other state. It says the 13th Finance Commission award has significantly underestimated the states financial requirements and failed in appreciating circumstances specific to Tripura. It also regrettably failed to realise the ground reality behind the higher government employment in the state among the north eastern states: Extremist onslaught… necessitated the raising of as many as 13 TSR battalions (Indian Reserve Battalions)… When the state finance minister met [Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee,he summarily turned down the states demand for special assistance to overcome the present fiscal impasse..,Recently the Centre has assured financial incentive of more than Rs 21,000 crore to the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal,and this was made in addition to the 13th Finance Commission award.
US hypocrisy,again
In an editorial titled Battle for Hydrocarbon,the CPIs New Age says America and its NATO allies are in blatant violation of rules,norms and conventions of international relations,fighting a battle to keep under their control the hydro-carbon resources of the Arab world spread over Middle-East and North Africa. To achieve this strategic goal,they are shamelessly massacring thousands and thousands of people and destroying countries that they feel are defiant and may create trouble for their plan to control and dominate this region. While Libyans are being mercilessly butchered by the NATO forces to protect the civilians,insurgency is being promoted by all means in Syria in the name of promoting democracy, it claims. It adds these very forces are actively supporting suppression of peoples revolt in Bahrain and Yemen where almost the entire population is out on the street to oust the despotic regimes… American hypocrisy on the question of democracy is being vividly getting exposed with what the imperialists are doing selectively in the Arab World. Astonishingly UN secretary general is adopting double standards. A Syrian killing is violation of human right but massacre of Libyan by NATO forces is not.
Compiled by Manoj C.G.
