• Defeat the diabolical anti-people plans of the ruling class!

• "How to stop communal violence"
  Report of discussion in Mumbai on March 15

• Stop privatisation! Defeat the anti-social offensive!
  Statement of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, March 14, 2002

• Why do people have to go hungry when the granaries are full?

• Militant protest march by workers in Delhi

• Fifty thousand workers participate in "Long March" against the anti-social offensive

• Who benefits from falling interest rates?

• Union Budget offers incentives for State Governments to implement market reforms

• Liberalisation of Foreign Investments in the Budget

• Indian Government supports Bush’s environmental irresponsibility

• North and South Korea to hold talks

• CNDP Denouces USA’s Nuclear Terror

Defeat the diabolical anti-people plans of the ruling class!

The policy of globalisation through liberalisation and privatisation has become thoroughly discredited. Its anti-worker, anti-peasant, anti-national character has become common knowledge. The conditions of the toilers and tillers, as well as the middle strata have deteriorated over the past decade.

In these conditions, the Indian ruling big bourgeois class is demanding the militarising of the economy and the whipping up of war hysteria. It is demanding the curtailment of labour rights and basic human rights, through the passing of draconian laws such as POTA. It is deliberately inflaming communal passions and fomenting bestial communal violence. Through all this, the opposition of the people to the anti-social offensive is sought to be diverted and drowned in rivers of blood. Within such an inflamed situation, privatisation and other attacks on the livelihood and rights of the workers, peasants, women, youth and the middle strata are being rammed through. The situation is truly grave and complicated for masses of our people.

Workers and peasants cannot afford to forget that from 1984 till today, every new onslaught on the working people has been carried out under the grim shadow of state organised communal and fascist terror. Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi launched the "modernisation" program under the shadow of Operation Bluestar, the massacre of Sikhs, the reign of terror in Punjab, and the draconian law called TADA. In the early nineties, the Narasimha Rao Government signed the WTO and unleashed the liberalisation and privatisation program under the shadow of the destruction of the Babri Masjid and the large scale communal massacres of Muslims in many parts of the country. The unleashing by the Vajpayee government of the "war against terrorism", the war hysteria and war preparations against Pakistan, as well as the deliberate inflaming of communal passions and organising of communal violence in Gujarat—are all linked with the striving of the big bourgeoisie to crush the mounting protests of workers, peasants, women youth and middle strata against the attacks on their livelihood and rights.

The working class must hoist the banner of opposition to this entire course. It must rally the peasantry and middle strata, the youth and women, against this anti-national course. The building of a revolutionary united front of workers and peasants with the banner of ensuring security of livelihood for the toilers and tillers; a life of dignity and security for all irrespective of their religion or caste or nationality; peace in South Asia and halting the imperialist warmongers in their tracks, is the need of the time.

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"How to stop communal violence"

Report of discussion in Mumbai on March 15

Despite a tense situation and wild rumours in the city, it was attended by about 75 people from various organisations: AITUC, Lok Raj Sangathan, Narmada Bachao Andolan, Majlis, Hind Naujawan Ekta Sabha, Communist Ghadar Party of India, Ekta, Vidrohi, Lok Vigyan, Rashtriya Ekta Samiti, Ladaku Garment Kamgar Sangathana, Lal Nishan Party, PUHR, Christian Institute for Study of Religion and Society, Mumbai Girni Kamgar Union, Yuva Bharat, Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights, Communist Party of India, Salokha, Trade Union Solidarity Committee. There were also several individuals, including Maj Gen Eustace Desouza (Retd.), who were not affiliated to any organisation.

Nearly 20 people participated in the discussion including Shivanand Kanavi, Gen Eustace Desouza, Anand Patwardhan, Neena Adarkar, Sukumar Damle, Radhika, Girish Bhave, Jairus Banaji, Phiroze, Ketan, Kshirsagar, Hetal, Priyanka and Prashant.

There was all round indignation at the government at not stopping the communal violence despite all the force available at its disposal. After all "How to stop communal violence" taken literally, has a very simple answer: through the use of force. That is the response of the society to any antisocial activity like lynching, murder, loot and arson.

Of course the instruments of such force are the army, police, jails and the courts of law — The State. There are more than a million armed forces and over three million police and paramilitary forces with all kinds of arms and communication equipment all funded with the tax payers money then what is the use of such a state?

If the Indian state does not use them to protect the people, why should productive members of society—the workers, peasants, intelligentsia, and all working people—fund and tolerate such a parasitic body?

There was a lively discussion with a diversity of views regarding action to be taken. Several long term and short-term measures were suggested: that immediate relief for the riot affected be organised, help lines be set up, communal organisations be banned, Congress and BJP be banned for fanning communal fires for interests of power and so on.

The meeting closed with a view that more such discussions should be organised and concrete programme put forward to end communal violence.

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Stop privatisation! Defeat the anti-social offensive!

Statement of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, March 14, 2002

Rob the poor and plunder the country to fatten the rich and the imperialists. This is the course through which the Tatas, Ambanis, Birlas and others want to emerge as global players using India as their jagir. They do not care about the disastrous consequences for workers and peasants, youth and students, the middle strata, small business and the masses of our people.

The bourgeoisie is repeating many lies to befuddle the minds of the people about the real aim and content of the privatisation program. The bourgeois propaganda creates the impression that privatisation is good for the consumers, that it is good for society and therefore the trade unions are blocking social progress by opposing privatisation. This propaganda offensive has to be defeated. The unity of the workers and the consumers, including broad sections of the middle strata, is the key to success in the struggle against privatisation.

It is clear to the working class that the privatisation of Modern Foods, for instance, is against the interests of workers. It led to the loss of jobs for many workers and to more intense exploitation for the rest. The bourgeoisie claims that this is a small cost to pay for the sake of benefiting the consumers. But has the privatisation of Modern Foods benefited the consumers of bread, including millions of workers, peasants and middle class families all over the country? The sale of Modern Foods to Hindustan Lever has resulted in bread becoming more costly, without any increase in quality. Under private corporate ownership, the consumers also face a bigger threat of nutrition value going down in the future, at the altar of private profit.

In each and every case of privatisation, an examination of the facts reveals the lying propaganda of the bourgeoisie. The facts are showing that privatisation is not only an anti-worker program, it is anti-social and anti-national as well. Just look at the results of the power sector privatisation program in Orissa. Prices have gone up many times for the peasants and for the poor and middle class families in the towns. Power theft by the rich has not ended. In addition, the private owners also claim their pound of flesh, adding to the burden on the backs of the toiling masses.

Privatisation is part of the anti-labour and anti-social offensive of the bourgeoisie. As part of this offensive, the bourgeoisie also has plans to amend Labour Laws to strengthen the hands of capitalists to attack the rights of the working class—hiring and firing at will. The Vajpayee Government has temporarily shelved these amendments. They were not announced in the Budget Speech. Why? Because the Government knows that the working class is united in its opposition to these anti-labour amendments; that this unity cuts across party barriers. The rulers want to wait for the opportune time to implement the attack on the legal front.

It is possible to block the privatisation program of the bourgeoisie, provided two conditions are fulfilled. First, the working class needs to unite across party and trade union affiliation so as to organise massive actions against privatisation. Second, the working class has to win over a sizable section of the middle strata onto its side. If these two conditions are fulfilled, then it is possible to block the privatisation program.

The struggle to block the privatisation program is part of the overall struggle to defeat the anti-social offensive of the bourgeoisie. This anti-social offensive consists of the draconian POTA and other fascist measures of the State in the name of waging a "war against terrorism". It consists of the warmongering against Pakistan and massing of troops along the border. It consists of the increasing use of the Army and paramilitary forces to crush the people in the name of security and "law and order". It consists of state-organised communal violence to set people against one another and drown in blood their common struggle against the bourgeoisie. It consists of the stepped up military collaboration between India and the US.

It is one offensive, one program behind which stands the big bourgeois class and all their parties, headed by the BJP and the Congress Party. This offensive can be defeated provided the working class leads the struggle as one struggle in defence of the rights of all the toilers and oppressed.

Let us target those sectors where the consumers can be mobilised to oppose privatisation! Let us target the weak points of the bourgeoisie so as to block the privatisation program through mass united actions!

Let us organise to block the privatisation program as an important step in defeating the anti-social offensive of the bourgeoisie!

Let us organise to defeat the bourgeois offensive as the necessary condition for carrying out the democratic renewal of India and the construction of socialism through the revolution!

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Why do people have to go hungry when the granaries are full?

The Editor

People’s Voice

Millions of concerned Indians must share my anger at the failure of the Union government to address the problem of hunger in our country. Just today, Union Minister Shanta Kumar declared arrogantly that it is not the task of the government to buy and sell food grains in the mandi! Instead he claimed that he was soon going to present a blue print for the Central government to end the food procurement and distribution system!

The stated aim of government buying foodgrains was to guarantee the livelihood of peasantry as well as ensure food security for the urban and rural poor. Today, the government has more than 60 millions tonnes of foodgrains in the FCI godowns. Of this at least 40 million tonnes are surplus stock, since the recommended buffer stock to ward off famines is only 20 million tonnes. The main reason for this huge stock is the dismantling of the Public Distribution System by the sharp hike in issue prices of wheat and rice. People continue to starve to death for lack of foodgrains. On the other side, the stock of foodgrains is being used as a lever to dismantle the food procurement system and threaten the livelihood of producers of wheat and rice! Government is using the surplus stocks as a weapon to attack livelihood, instead of as a weapon in favour of people to address the problem of hunger!

Imagine if the government had announced that this 40 million tonnes of foodgrains be distributed to the hungry. The surplus stock could have been distributed to at the rate of 20 kgs per month per household for a period of 3 months. Then, 33.3 lakh families would have benefited. Considering that a family has 5 people on the average, this could have fed 165 lakh people. There are many more underfed people in India, but at least this could have filled the stomachs of the most needy and marginalised people. Meanwhile, the government could have bought more foodgrains at guaranteed prices from the peasants, ensuring their livelihood. This would have benefited the Indian society as a whole.

Imagine that the Budget had announced that in exchange for this food and for a small cash payment of say Rs. 1000 per household per month, the productive member of the household would be required to put in labour in a vast range of public works that need urgent attention. For example, the member could have been employed in desilting canals and lakes, constructing rural roads and minor irrigation works, repairing dilapidated schools and public health centres, and a host of other useful things. With such a course, and a little public investment, society as a whole could benefit.

Where would the money come for investments in food security, and public works? Imagine that the government put a freeze on defence expenditure increases, made serious efforts to build friendly relations with neighbours and decided not to fritter away scarce money on such unproductive expenses. The defence expenditure would have been pegged at last year’s expenditure of Rs 57,000 crores, and saved the extra expenditure of Rs 8,000 crores announced this year at the very least. At the rate of Rs 1000 per household per month in exchange for work, this amount would have been enough to employ at least one member for the entire year in about 67 lakh households benefiting more than 3 crore people, assuming a family size of five. And if the defence expenditure were actually cutback, not just maintained, so much money could be released for the public works. If other unproductive expenditures such as the huge outflow from the country in the form of interest payments had also been frozen and tax and other concessions given to capitalists reversed, the government could have brought a smile to millions of deprived, oppressed workers and peasants of India.

When our rulers declare that it is not their business to buy and sell foodgrains, one begins to seriously wonder what is their real business? They have obviously decided that bringing smiles to the faces of the poor and deprived is not their business. But investing in defence, highways, telecom, etc., is considered their business because it will bring smiles to certain other faces.

For the Indian economy to revive, agriculture to flourish, workers and peasants to prosper, not much effort and resources are required. India being such a vast country with huge amount of natural and manual resources, this need not be a daydream. But as long as we permit ourselves to be ruled by those who arrogantly declare that it is not their business to provide for the people, or reorganise the economy to ensure the same, this will remain a daydream. It is time all Indians, particularly workers and peasants asserted themselves. We must unfurl the plan for reorganising the economy and polity on new foundations and begin organising to ensure it in reality!

Yours truly, Kartar Singh, Jalandhar

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Militant protest march by workers in Delhi

The protest was organised by the Joint Action Committee of Delhi State Committees of Central Trade Unions/ Federations—AICCTU, AITUC, BMS, CITU, HMS, MEC, TUCC, UTUC, UTUC-LS, INTUC, UFBU, NZIEA, GIEAIA. The workers carried placards, banners and red flags, opposing the "anti-national, anti-people, anti-poor, anti-worker and anti-farmer policies collectively termed as "New Economic Policy", and popularly known as LPG (Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation), being pursued with full vigour and determination by the government of India under the pressure of multinational corporations, IMF, World Bank, WTO, Asian Development Bank and the Domestic Monopoly Houses", according to a press note released by the Joint Action Committee.

Comrade Govind Yadav, Secretary of the Modern Food Industries Employees Union and Vice President, MEC, addressed the rally on behalf of the Mazdoor Ekta Committee. Elaborating on he experience of the struggle waged by workers of Modern Foods against privatisation, he affirmed that the working class has the strength to block privatisation and reverse the anti-social offensive if it united under one banner and rallied the peasantry and all the exploited around a program of deep going transformations.

Trade union leaders from the national level as well as Delhi levels addressed the massive rally. Gurudas Dasgupta, General Secretary, AITUC, Udhaya Patwardhan, General Secretary, BMS, Dr. MK Pandhe, General Secretary, CITU, Umraomal Purohit, General Secretary, HMS, Chandi Dass Sinha, Secretary, INTUC, Swapan Mukherji, General Secretary, AICCTU, Rajan Shastri, General Secretary TUCC, Bhimpuri, UTUC, Harish Tyagi UTUC-LS, Ramanand of Banks, SR Saini from LIC, NP Upadhyaya from GIC were among those who addressed the rally.

The Press Note points out that "attacks on working masses has been further intensified. Situation has turned really grim. The government is recklessly on the move to dismantle entire Public Sector including high profit earning enterprises such as delinking of GIC and its subsidiary companies in order to raise funds to bridge widening fiscal gap. The government wants to retrench more than 5 lakh employees under the so-called ‘Voluntary Retirement Scheme’. The new economic policy creates no job opportunities. It is reducing the purchasing power of the community and breeds poverty and deprivation. Non performing assets amounting to one lakh crore (bad debts) of banks continue to increase and no steps whatsoever have been taken by the authorities for recovery of bad loans, which have reached a staggering figure. As a result of these policies, rich will grow richer and poor will go down poorer. Exploitation of labour and farmer will grow. Efforts are being made to introduce rule of Hire and Fire, to increase contract labour system and casualisation. Permanent/regular jobs will vanish. Subsidies are being withdrawn. Imports are being liberalised to the detriment of industry agriculture."

• Put a stop to privatisation.
• Desist from amending labour laws in favour of employers.
• Restore essential subsidies for common man and farmers.
• Restore the interest rate back to 12% on savings.
• Restrict imports to essential items.
• Strengthen Public Distribution System.
• Pass a comprehensive law to protect agricultural labour.
• Create employment.
• Restrict entry of multi-nationals only to very essential and specified fields.

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Fifty thousand workers participate in "Long March" against the anti-social offensive

From 3 o’clock in the afternoon on 14th March 2002, workers started streaming into Maharashtra High School Maidan at Currey Road, Central Mumbai, the starting point of the Long March. They carried placards and banners denouncing the anti-working class policies of the Central and State Governments. By 4 pm the Maidan was overflowing and the workers set out militantly shouting slogans. The huge procession wound its way through the working class areas of Lalbaug, Arthur Road, Jacob Circle and Girgaum on the way to Azad Maidan. A sea of red banners and flags and workers shouting militant slogans like "Down with the 2nd Generation reforms of Liberalisation, privatization and globalisaton", "Down with the Proposal to Amend the Labour Laws" ,"Working Class Unity Zindabad", "Workers of the World Unite", and " Down with the attempts to Divide the workers" was enthusiastically greeted by thousands of people on the roadsides. Workers from the railways, port and dock workers, insurance and bank employees, central and state government employees, state transport workers, BEST and municipal workers, workers from electricity boards and postal employees, workers from engineering and pharmaceutical companies, from refineries and fertiliser companies, belonging to both public and private sector, took part in the "Long march".

When the procession reached Azad Maidan, it was truly a sight to behold. After a long time, this historic Maidan was packed with tens of thousands of workers cutting across party and union affiliation. Workers were eagerly discussing the statement of CGPI on how to stop privatisation. Several thousand copies of this important statement were distributed.

At the Maidan the leaders of the trade unions addressed the workers. They saluted the show of strength of the working class. They declared that representatives of the entire working people of Mumbai were assembled at this Maidan. They announced to the workers that similar rallies were being held all over the country on this day. If necessary to win their demands, the working class could close down Mumbai, Maharashtra and the whole of India not just for one day but even a whole week. The leaders also proudly declared that when the police was threatening to withhold permission for the Long March in view of the VHP’s ongoing agitation over the Ayodhya issue, the working class was the only force capable of maintaining the peace and had demonstrated that attempts to divide the working class would fail.

After a tiring day, the meeting closed at 8.00 pm and the workers trooped out of the Maidan knowing that big battles lie ahead of them.

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Who benefits from falling interest rates?

For the last few years, the government has announced reduction after reduction in the interest rates of the small savings schemes like the Public Provident Fund (PPF), National Savings Schemes, etc. These interest rate cuts have been invariably accompanied by lowering of interest rates by the banks, both on savings and loans. The rate of interest on PF and PPF accounts used to be 12% up to two years ago. Last year, the interest rate on PPF was reduced from 11% to 9.5%, and this year it has been further reduced to 9%. This amounts to a one-fourth reduction in the interest rate over the last two years. The same level of reduction of interest rates has been effected in other savings schemes also. Since this interest is compounded over many years, people who have invested in small savings would be losing much more than one-fourth of their interest income (see box).

Banks and small saving schemes are used by common people to save money for major medical expenses, to buy or build a dwelling, to get their children married, and to make provisions for their retired life, when they are no more in a position to earn. With the reduction in interest rates, it is not very hard to imagine how, when prices are continuously rising, people who are surviving only on interest on savings will be deeply hurt. From the indications given by the Finance Minister, the interest rates are likely to fall further.

When the Finance Minister was asked whether the reduction in interest rates would not result in lower rate of savings by the people, he said, "We must move to the savings model of the developed world." In the developed countries, the interest rates are kept very low and people are encouraged to invest their savings in the stock market, mutual funds and pension funds, where the returns on investment are supposed to be higher than the banks and savings schemes.

If the lower interest rates are hurting most of the people, who is benefiting from them?

The capitalist system has developed a very efficient way of collecting the small savings of the masses and making them available for use by large industry and finance capital. Common people put their savings in banks, and get, a low return by way of interest. They put up with this low rate of interest in the belief that their savings are safe and this rate at least is guaranteed. Total deposits in Indian banks of millions of people exceed a few lakh crores of rupees. The banks lend this money mainly to big industries and to a smaller extent, to small industries, artisans, farmers and individuals for their personal needs, at a higher rate of interest. The difference between the interest earned by the banks on loans advanced, and on the interest paid by the banks on the savings of the depositors is the source of the banks’ earnings.

The banks thus provide capital to the bourgeoisie by collecting and concentrating the money of the common people. The bourgeoisie invariably invests only a small part of its own money and borrows a substantial part from banks and other similar institutions, to put together the total capital required to put up a factory or business. The capitalists of course have full control over the use of the entire capital invested, including what was borrowed from the banks out of the savings of the people.

The bourgeoisie will always like to borrow at the least possible interest, and therefore always puts pressure on the government to lower interest rates on loans. Banks can reduce interest rates on loans only when they pay lower interest rates on the savings of their depositors. It is therefore evident that the biggest beneficiaries of low interest rates are the big industrialists and the large borrowers from the banks.

In our country, besides large industry, the government is one of the largest borrowers and year after year, mops up more and more savings of the people to meet its deficit. The interest payout on the borrowings of the Government of India is its largest expenditure, and this is growing year after year. Thus the reduction in interest rates also reduces the interest payout by the Government and helps it to reduce the gap between its income and expenditure. During the last year itself, the Government of India managed to save more than Rs.5000 crores on its interest payout, as against what it had budgeted for, by lowering the interest rate.

Thus while lowering of interest rate hurts the masses of people, it benefits mainly the big industrialists and the government of the capitalists.

As people find the banks becoming less attractive for depositing their savings, they are forced to look at other avenues to maintain their income on savings. This invariably has given rise to mutual funds, insurance funds and pension funds all over the world.

In our country mutual funds came up in a big way a few years ago. Mutual funds are supposed to give higher returns by partly investing in the stock market. People put a part of their savings in insurance funds to cover the risk of death and accidents. The person who is insuring pays a small amount of premium over a long time. Through the insurance premium paid by crores of people, the insurance company builds up an insurance fund of thousands of crores of rupees every year. This fund is invested by the insurance company in the stock market, banks and government securities. Similarly, pension funds collect a small but regular premium from the people over a long number of years and pay them a fixed monthly pension after their retirement. Thus, insurance and pension funds collect large savings of people, which are made available to the large industry and big capitalists as well as to the government securities.

Our government is advising people to put their savings in the stock market, mutual, insurance and pension funds if they are not happy with the low bank interest rates. By their very nature, investments in the stock market, either directly or through various funds, are more risky. Thus, as interest rates fall people are forced to move from small savings with guaranteed returns to mutual funds and then to the stock market which provides highly uncertain returns. During the last few years itself, a lot of small investors in India lost a substantial part of even their capital invested in the stock market and in various funds.

Investment of savings in the stock market and mutual, insurance and pension funds is supposed to be the model of the rich countries. But, this model has brought only misery to the small investors of those countries (See box). This is the model that our Finance Minister is recommending to the Indian people.

These changes are a part of the economic reforms process that has been imposed on Indian people. The people are being told that their economic lot will improve by following the model of the rich countries. Our people must realize the true purpose and intention of these reforms and oppose them.

The adjoining graph shows how saving of Rs. 1000/- per month results in a substantial sum after 30 years of subscriber contribution and interest income. With 12% interest rate compounded annually, the sum at the end of the period is more than 32.5 lakh Rupees. With interest rate of 9%, the accumulated sum would only be 18 lakh Rupees. Thus a 25% reduction in the interest rate results in a 45% reduction in the final accumulated sum after 30 years. If we consider only the interest earning in this period, reduction is much greater to the tune of %. Thus a small looking change in the interest rate is actually a big attack on many people.

The country with the lowest interest rate in the world is Japan. Japanese economy is the second largest in the world after USA. Interest rates have been 1% - 3% for the past many years in Japan. Quite obviously, a large part of the savings of the Japanese people got diverted to their stock market. The Japanese stock prices peaked in ’92, and since then have been steeply falling. In ’01, they reached their lowest level in the last 18 years. The stock prices now are nearly one fourth of what they were in ’92. Thus most Japanese people who hoped to earn by putting their savings in the stock market during the last 18 years, have in fact lost most of their capital, leave aside earning any return on it.

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Union Budget offers incentives for State Governments to implement market reforms

A provision of Rs. 2500 crore has been made under a newly created Development and Reform Facility. This money will flow only to those states that make progress in implementing liberalisation and privatisation, to the satisfaction of the Central Government.

Another Rs. 500 crore has been allocated as seed money for the creation of an Urban Reform Incentive Fund. This money will be available to those municipal corporations and urban bodies that implement reforms in the Rent Control Law and repeal the Urban Land Ceiling Act, among other conditions.

The Budget also links all additional allocations for centrally sponsored schemes in the agriculture sector to the implementation of measures by state governments to deregulate and decontrol agricultural production and marketing. In other words, only those states that lift restrictions on the operation of private profiteers in agriculture and food trade will get additional central funds.

These measures by the Central Government are aimed at changing the nature of resource sharing between the centre and the states in India. Traditionally, the sharing of resources was supposed to be based on the need for fiscal equalisation and poverty reduction. This means that states that were disadvantaged, due to lower tax base or higher cost of providing services or both, and states that were poorer than average, were expected to get a proportionally higher share of resources from the centre. Now, all or most of the additional resources are being linked to the implementation of reforms, rather than being need based or driven by the criterion of fiscal equalisation.

Such a major change in the principles governing the distribution of plan resources between the central and state governments is generally expected to be made only after discussion in the National Development Council (NDC), where all the states are represented by their respective chief ministers. But the Union Budget 2002-03 has announced such a change unilaterally, without endorsement from the NDC. It is to be seen how the state government representatives react to this when the NDC meets next.

In effect, what is happening is that the Central Government is acting towards the states just like the IMF and the World Bank act towards sovereign governments—that is, to use development financing as an instrument to influence the course of economic policy. This marks a new and higher level of central interference in the affairs of state governments.

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Liberalisation of Foreign Investments in the Budget

The budget has also de-linked foreign direct investments from foreign institutional investments in enterprises. Earlier there was an overall foreign investment limit on foreign ownership of an Indian company. For example, foreign investment in telecom companies was limited to 76 per cent and in the insurance sector it was limited to 26 per cent. This included both direct investments and institutional investments in the stock market. But now, institutional investors in stocks of an Indian company can acquire up to 49 per cent of the shares of the company. Therefore, the total share of a foreign investor in an Indian company can reach almost 100 per cent in certain industries.

Whom does this policy of investment liberalisation serve?

The Indian big bourgeoisie has allowed increased foreign investments into India with the plan that it can leverage these foreign reserves to increase its investments abroad and become a global player. Indian capitalists have been making higher investments in the software, oil and steel industries abroad.

On the other hand, foreign investors invest in India to take advantage of the low cost of labour and the huge captive market. Many studies have pointed out that generally foreign investors do not create new productive capacities. They take over existing companies, bring in new technology and reduce the work force. The moment that their investments don’t fetch maximum profits, they run away to new shores. This has been time and again demonstrated in the Brazilian, South-East Asian and recently the Argentinian crisis when the exit of foreign capital completely destroyed the economy and created conditions for the investors to return again and feed on the broken economy like vultures.

While foreign exchange reserves have grown steadily from $5.8 billion in 1990-91 to $50 billion today, the reserves were built by removing restrictions on foreign trade and investments and not by increasing the self-sufficiency of the economy, increasing exports and reducing imports. The Indian bourgeoisie has been claiming that with the high foreign exchange reserves and a progressive removal of restrictions on foreign investments and trade, the Indian economy will be safe from the capitalist crisis of the bigger economies around the world. But the present state of the Indian economy has proved this to be a big lie. With each year of the economic reforms, the integration of the Indian economy with the global economy has increased, and with it the magnitude of the capitalist crisis. Thus the danger of a crisis similar to those experienced in South-East Asia a few years ago or Argentina more recently looms ever larger.

The liberalisation of the ‘capital account’, i.e. allowing for free flow of capital into and out of the economy, is another major anti–people step taken by the government in this year’s budget, against the interests of the people and fully in the interests of the big bourgeoisie, Indian and foreign.

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Indian Government supports Bush’s environmental irresponsibility

On the other hand, the Indian rulers have made claims that they are great champions of the environment. Various arms of the Indian state have used the environmental stick to further their ends in the recent past. In Delhi, for example, many small industries have been shut down; taxis, three-wheelers and buses have been forced to switch to CNG as a fuel, etc. This has caused enormous hardships to the working people who have lost their livelihood, to the owners of taxis and three wheelers who have had to pay through their noses for conversion of their vehicles to run on CNG, to school children and commuters who have had to do without adequate numbers of buses, and so on. The Supreme Court and the government have been hard and heartless, eulogizing the need for the people to make "small sacrifices" for the "sake of future generations".

Can it not be said that the rulers were highly unprincipled, in the least, when they "welcomed" US imperialist chieftain Bush’s "climate change initiative" of February 2002, wherein he has asserted that his country, the biggest emitter of polluting gases causing long term impairment of the environment ("greenhouse gases"), would not do anything to implement the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 aimed at legal measure to reduce such emissions? That Protocol itself was all but still-born, thanks to the US imperialists. Again, in July 2001, the US imperialists worked might and main to scuttle the Bonn treaty on implementing the Kyoto protocol. In fact, the United States' leading allies told US imperialist chieftain Bush on that occasion that they intended to move ahead and ratify the Kyoto Protocol on global warming by next year (2002), even without American participation.

Bush has said that developing countries like China and India must shoulder some of the "shared obligations", i.e. that his administra-tion would do nothing, and others ought to clean up the mess his constituents have created. His remarks have provoked widespread protests even in his own country, as well as in Europe and elsewhere. The Indian rulers have however termed Bush’s remarks as "realistic"!

Bush has sought to point out the existence of a link between economic growth, prosperity and environmental protection. There is of course a link, but as on all issues, the perspectives of the imperialists and those of the peoples are diametrically opposed. The imperialists of today, as the colonialists of yore, have sought to enrich themselves to the maximum, with no regard to what happens to the peoples they exploit, the lands they pillage and the environment they rape. The cost of cleaning up, if it is to be done at all, has to be borne by the peoples, else, their own profits would dip, and that wouldn’t make economic sense, would it ?

The peoples of course would like the resources of this earth to be used sensibly and sagaciously, so that it may be possible for future generations too to be free of want. In all developed countries, it is the consciousness of the people which has forced their governments to adopt stringent measures to protect the environment. This consciousness must be sharpened amongst all the peoples and the imperialists and those who are subservient to them must be forced to act so that the interests of the peoples are upheld.

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North and South Korea to hold talks

In addition, it was reported that North Korea's head of state, Kim Yong Nam, was likely to attend the opening ceremony and match of World Cup soccer, which opens in Seoul on May 31, 2002. South Korea, meanwhile, will reportedly send food and fertilizer to the North and send visitors to a major North Korean festival in April 2002. "We expect the talks to lay the groundwork for a resumption of stalled relations between South and North Korea," the presidential spokesperson Park Sun Sook said in a brief statement she made in Seoul.

US chieftain Bush faced vigorous protests when he visited South Korea in February 2002. The Korean people have been divided for half a century thanks only to the gluttony and perfidy of the Anglo-American imperialists. The Anglo–American imperialists have worked might and main all these decades to keep the Korean people divided. In his "State of the Union" address at the end of January 2002, Bush had termed North Korea as part of an "axis of evil". This provoked severe protests from the Korean community in the US, as well as from North and South Korea and from elsewhere in the world. The concrete measures now being taken by the governments of North and South Korea to hold talks and increase contacts represent the deep felt aspiration of the Korean people for reunification of their land, divided as it is by the imperialists.

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CNDP Denouces USA’s Nuclear Terror

The Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, India voices its outrage at the unprecedented nuclear threat to the whole world held out by the militarists at the helm of the United States of America. The CNDP also expresses its indignation at the servile silence of New Delhi over the subject.

The "contingency plans" revealed in the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) by the Pentagon under the Bush Administration cannot be clearer in their intent. The multi-billion populace of seven countries—with Russia, China, Syria and Libya now added to the "axis of evil" comprising Iraq, Iran and Korea—have been made the potential targets of nuclear lunacy on the part of the world's strongest ever superpower. If countries close to these targets are taken into account, the NPR (leaked to the media) is an attempt to intimidate a large swathe of humanity.

The NPR threatens nuclear strikes against targets too tough for non-nuclear weapons, in "retaliation" against attacks by biological and chemical weapons of which the USA has the largest stockpiles, and even in case of "surprising military developments" of an undefined kind. The added threats of nuclear assaults in an Arab–Israel conflict and a Taiwan–China clash make for a truly alarming prospect. The list of targets leaves no doubt that the Bush regime is not going to be bound by treaties the US has signed including the NPT and the CTBT.

While the madness has been denounced even by many in the West, the Government of India is yet to find its tongue. New Delhi, which has acquiesced in Washington's space weaponization schemes and its withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, is failing this peace-loving nation even more by its tacit support for the USA's line of nuclear terror.

– Achin Vanaik, Praful Bidwai, Admiral L.Ramdas (Retd.), J. Sri Raman, Prabir Purkayastha, Jayaprakash and Christopher Fonseca

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