India

The US Supreme Court Judgment: A Challenge to World Bank’s unfettered immunity

31 March 2019 - by Sushovan Dhar

The verdict is finally out. On 27 February, in a historic 7-1 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that international organizations like the World Bank Group are not above immunity and can be sued in US courts. This was in response to a case (Budha Ismail Jam, et al., (...)
The Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) Debt Default: Privatize Profits, Socialize Losses?

15 January 2019 - by Sushovan Dhar

Even when the Lehman Brothers collapse shook the entire financial world, the Indian political elites and the capitalist class were quite confident that the contagion would not spread to India. True, the Indian banks and financial institutions did not weather similar tsunamis as their Western (...)
How Britain stole $45 trillion from India

31 December 2018 - by Jason Hickel

There is a story that is commonly told in Britain that the colonisation of India - as horrible as it may have been - was not of any major economic benefit to Britain itself. If anything, the administration of India was a cost to Britain. So the fact that the empire was sustained for so long - (...)
Japanese Investor’s (JICA) Guidelines Violated in the Mumbai - Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail Project (MAHSR)

20 August 2018 - by Krishnakant, Rohit Prajapati

The Japanese Government’s investment agency, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is signatory to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Indian Government for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail Project (MAHSR), popularly known as the ‘Bullet Train Project’. There are two (...)
India: Bullet Train – Train with ‘Bullets’ i.e. ‘A Symbol of Violence, Absolute Force’

16 August 2018 - by Krishnakant, Rohit Prajapati

Our First Few Bullet Questions to the Modi Government: - Why is MoEF&CC absent while a foreign government agency is participating in Environmental Consultation? - Ongoing Consultation accepts the need for environmental concerns. Then, why the Environment Laws of India and MoEF&CC have (...)
Report on CADTM activities in Sri Lanka and India, 6 - 19 April 2018

15 May 2018 - by Eric Toussaint

Several articles were published in French, English, Spanish and Portuguese on the CADTM website; they focused on the successful 7th regional workshop of CADTM South Asia, that was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from 6 to 8 April 2018. As Nathan Legrand writes in his article, “Around forty (...)
Éric Toussaint: “There is a disposition in the world’s masses for radical left proposals”

7 May 2018 - by Eric Toussaint

On 16 April 2018, Éric Toussaint was invited to speak about the role of the central banks and the banking sector at a seminar organised by Sampreeti – Sanskriti, a cultural association linked to the All India Reserve Bank Employees Association (AIRBEA, the main trade union of the Indian central (...)
India: Thriving Usury in Tirunelveli

23 April 2018 - by S. Aadhirai

The recent self-immolation of a family in Tamil Nadu drew widespread attention to the issue of usury prevalent in the state. Following a hearing on the depositions of 60 borrower victims at a people’s tribunal in Tirunelveli district, an attempt has been made to examine the nature of the issue, (...)
Crony capitalism looms large on the Indian banking horizon

18 April 2018 - by Sushovan Dhar

The $1.77 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam, possibly the biggest financial chicanery to have hit the Indian banking sector, is rocking the nation. Perpetrated by a diamond tycoon in collusion with bank officials, defrauding India’s second largest bank in such a manner seems astonishing. (...)
The bullet train project in India: a story of white elephant and public debt

27 November 2017 - by Sushovan Dhar

We are a happy nation waiting to ride the bullet train... The Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (MAHSR), connecting these major metropolis in western India, is soon to be built with Japanese finance and assistance. The Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi jointly (...)
Farmers storm India’s national capital, demanding freedom from debt and better price for their produce

24 November 2017 - by La Via Campesina

Several thousand small-holder farmers from across India held a massive demonstration in New Delhi, from 20-21 November to draw attention to the acute agrarian distress plaguing the countryside and seeking immediate intervention by the Union Government. Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha and South (...)
Judge Declares World Bank Immunity Cases “Wrongly Decided”; Indian Plaintiffs Ask D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to Review “Absolute Immunity” Doctrine

30 August 2017 - by EarthRights International

After a federal judge declared that cases giving the World Bank Group “absolute immunity” from lawsuits were “wrongly decided,” communities represented by EarthRights International (ERI) have filed a petition asking the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to revisit its immunity doctrine. In June, a (...)
The unbearable burden of being an Indian farmer : shot dead for demanding debt relief

19 June 2017 - by Sushovan Dhar

A nondescript district in the centre of this vast country has suddenly become a most sought after destination for politicians and media people. Lamentably, this transformation has come at the cost of human lives. Farmers in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh started their protests since June 1 (...)
Time to dump greed for need

11 June 2017 - by Suresh Seshadri

A political scientist explains how banks and governments across the world are colluding to enlarge public debt For a country whose most famous son M.K. Gandhi once said, “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed,” India’s contemporary banking sector crisis (...)
Breaking the Vicious Cycle of Illegitimate Private Debt in the global South

26 April 2017 - by Eric Toussaint

The “debt system” is gathering steam In Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, just as in the highly industrialized countries, after going through several fundamental changes over the past 40 years. Mainly since the outbreak of the Third World debt crisis in the early 1980s. Austerity (...)
India: Statement on Bhangar Land Disputes and Atrocities on Peasants

27 January 2017 - by Radical Socialist

It is over a decade since Mamata Banerjee made peasant discontent with government takeover of their land the unique selling point by which to make herself and her party the focal point of opposition, so that she could co-opt a part of the grass roots agitations that had developed in Singur and (...)
World Bank money is helping to finance Asia’s coal boom: report

4 November 2016 - by Isabel Esterman

Should the World Bank Group be held accountable when financial institutions it supports invest in projects that threaten forests and communities? After tracing the Group’s links to controversial projects like the Rampal coal power station, the activists behind a new report say, “Yes.” A report by (...)
India on Strike

10 October 2016 - by Kunal Chattopadhyay, Soma Marik

In the midst of a right-wing onslaught, Indian workers carried out one of the largest strikes in world history. On September 2, 180 million Indian workers participated in a massive one-day strike that extended across the country and engaged employees in every economic sector. Likely the (...)
Tata Mundra Project: Time to End World Bank Immunity

21 September 2016 - by Sushovan Dhar

Fisher-folks, farmers and marginal wage earners in Gujarat, India were shocked to hear about the US federal district court ruling in March this year that the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private lending arm of the World Bank Group, enjoys absolute immunity and therefore cannot (...)
Ajit Muricken (1945-2016)

16 March 2016 - by Eric Toussaint

Ajit Muricken, who passed away following a heart attack on Monday, March 14, 2016, came from a wealthy family of Kerala. As a student Ajit became a radical, broke up with his parents and decided to commit himself to the struggle against all forms of oppression. With Mercy, his partner for over (...)
Obituary Ajit Muricken

15 March 2016 - by Eric Toussaint, VAK

Dear Friends We wish to express with deep sadness the death of Mr. Ajit Muricken who died early this morning from a severe heart attack at his residence in Vagamon, Kerala. As you know Ajit Muricken had been the Director of Vikas Adhyayan Kendra (VAK) since 1993 and had since retired and (...)
No bailout with taxpayer money

24 February 2016 - by Prasenjit Bose

Delinquent corporate borrowers and negligent bankers need no state support. Development Financial Institutions should be revived for industrial and infrastructure financing
Should Plantation workers be working at poverty level wages?

18 January 2016 - by Vijaya Kumar

Special correspondents and bigwigs in the planation industry keep hammering at us that plantation workers in Sri Lankan are vastly overpaid, any increases in pay will be spent on liquor, no increase in pay is possible unless tied to productivity and that workers should agree to a new system (...)
The Denial of Minimum Wage should be a Cognizable Offence

11 October 2015 - by Sushovan Dhar

Fulltime trade unionist of the Progressive Plantation Workers’ Union and Executive Council Member of one of India’s youngest national trade union federations, the New Trade Union Initiative, Sushovan Dhar spoke to Ceylon Today about trade unions and workers rights. By Ruwan Laknath Jayakody and (...)
Labour Law Reforms, Indian Capitalism and the Modi Government

1 September 2015 - by Radical Socialist

This is the second article on the coming all India strike. Here we take a look at the kind of reforms Modi wishes to push though. The first article here From the beginning of the era of globalization in India, one routine yell of the capitalist class has been that the Indian labour laws are (...)