Opinion The ‘Jewish lobby’ and Obama

“Notwithstanding his demagogic rhetoric,” the editorial argued,“Obama has clearly emerged as a champion of the powerful Jewish lobby that reflects US imperialism’s designs of global hegemony. Clearly,in the background of the current severe economic crisis and recession where the finance capital controlled by the Jewish lobby is a very important factor for president Obama’s effort to refurbish the beleaguered US economy,as he moves in for his reelection,he has taken a hawkish position.”

2G and BJP

The editorial in the CPI’s New Age locates blame for the 2G licencing scam with the NDA as well as the UPA,saying the culprits belong to “various segments” of the present Congress-led coalition as well as the previous BJP-led alliance. “From the enquiry so far and documents submitted to the JPC looking into the spectrum scam,it is quite clear that the spectrum loot started during the Vajpayee regime…,”it alleges. New Age argues it was not surprising that the BJP which “itself is neck-deep in corruption is joining forces with the ruling combination to divert people’s attention from the real issue… In place of insisting on a thorough and comprehensive probe covering all players involved,it is indulging in wordy dual about a possible mid-term poll for Lok Sabha. Actually,both the UPA 2 and BJP know very well that corruption will harm none. We have seen how the Jain Hawala case was hushed up with the connivance of all concerned. The accused list of Hawala case was a virtual Who’s Who of Indian bourgeois political parties,” it claims. Corruption,it adds,is as much a legitimate child of economic neo-liberalism as inflation,price rise and economic disparities.

Distress,not growth

An article in People’s Democracy focuses on the growth in urban population revealed by recently-released provisional population figures for Census 2011. The trend,it says,indicated an “abnormal degree of urbanisation and movement of population from rural to urban areas.” It warns “advocates of neo-liberalism” may use the trend to argue that economic reforms are leading to greater prosperity and employment opportunities,but argues such an interpretation was far from true. “A closer look at regional patterns in the census figures reveals a link between the pattern of urban population growth,corporate investments and rural distress,” it argues,adding that in several states,like Karnataka,Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra,the number of census villages has declined,while towns have increased at an alarming rate.

The existence of such townships,it argues “indicates an increase in corporate and the other investments in resource rich rural areas. It is well known that the three states have not only attracted such corporate investments but have also been facing agrarian distress in the last decade and a half. There is increasing landlessness amongst the agricultural workers… fuelling displacement and forced migration from these regions… The second factor that points towards the link between rural distress and the growth of the urban population is the percentage of urban population growth in states facing rural distress,” it says.

“In this context it is possible to surmise that the provisional findings of the census point towards a rural-urban imbalance that can be explained only if it is related to the rural distress and corporate penetration that has signified two decades of neo-liberal reforms,” it concludes.