Opinion Sell-side logic

The article says that the issue is not just of corruption or whether laws have been obeyed or procedures followed. Once the loot of public resources for private gain is accepted as policy,every department becomes entrepreneurial,as the armed services look at how to “sell” defence land,railways talk of building malls and space departments “sell” spectrum,it claims.

“This is the brand of capitalism that Manmohan Singh is promoting — behind his claim of personal integrity,” it says. The article doesn’t absolve the BJP either,saying that “they had also unleashed similar “animal spirits” during the Vajpayee regime and continue to do so in the states they rule.”

Still leaning leftwards

With merely a week left for the Kerala polls,the CPI argues that the Left Front stands a chance of retaining power if the CPM puts its house in order. Referring to the V.S. Achuthanandan-Pinarayi Vijayan tussle,an editorial in CPI journal New Age said: “If they succeed in closing their ranks well in time,Kerala is definitely going to repeat the history of the mid-’70s,when it had voted back a Left-led alliance to power.” The editorial argues that the host of scams that has buffeted the UPA would bear on the assembly results in both Kerala and West Bengal. Besides,the allocation of seats within the Congress has disillusioned many party workers,it says.

In West Bengal,the euphoria after Nandigram,Singur and Lalgarh has evaporated,and instead of assessing the incumbency factor for the Left Front,even pro-change propagandists have started acknowledging that the mercurial behaviour of the TMC leader is going to affect this much-publicised wind of change,it argues. “Her contradictory postures too have contributed in affecting her image. While promising land reforms and other pro-poor measures,her party is projecting a former FICCI chief as possible finance minister of the state. The Left Front has definitely improved its position and in all probability is going to bounce back to power that it has wielded during the past 34 years,a record in itself,” the article says.

Imperialism,updated

People’s Democracy carries excerpts of CPM leader Sitaram Yechury’s inaugural lecture at a symposium titled ‘What does imperialism mean in an age of global finance?’,organised by Columbia University,New York. Yechury hits out at the US for attacking Libya,and says that US imperialism’s double standards become clear with the US-inspired Saudi intervention in Bahrain to prop up the Khalifa. “Both interventions are ironically in the name of protecting the people. The reason for such a double standard is not far to seek. Bahrain is home to the US navy’s fifth fleet and has been its steadfast ally. Libya on the other hand,is not such a firm ally. Further,Libyan oil reserves and importantly the ocean of fossil water reserves on which its deserts lie today have the potential of more lucrative profits than oil. A regime change here could well be to imperialism’s advantage,while in Bahrain it is not,” he says.

This economic onslaught of imperialism,he notes,is accompanied by an intense ideological onslaught that essentially argues that it is only economics that determines politics and not politics that determines economics. “They argue,for this reason,‘do not politicise economic reforms’,‘let there be unanimity’,in what essentially is the implementation of a neo-liberal economic order,” he says.