Opinion TACKLING LOW GROWTH

The editorial says that the UPA government,carrying forward its neoliberal economic reform trajectory,is creating newer avenues for profit maximisation,hoping that it will attract greater foreign investment which,in turn,will propel the growth rate. It argues the SPV — which will also be responsible for securing all clearances before a project is put up for bidding — is a higher stage in the process of private profit maximisation than the PPP.

“Promoting PPP is the classic argument of those… seeking vacation of space by the government for private profit-making. The government,we are told,needs to move out of areas like hotels etc (even while making profits) and concentrate on education and health. Then we are told since adequate resources are not available,both education and health need to be privatised… And so goes on the story where the government of the day has no space left to pursue socially required projects or even express the popular will of the people,” it argues.

It concludes that there is a fundamental flaw in the government’s diagnosis that it is the slow pace of investment that is the cause for lower growth rate. “The basic problem… is to reverse the current slackening of domestic demand. Unless this is done,no amount of increase in investment will lead to a higher growth rate because what is produced… needs to be sold in the market. This requires adequate purchasing power in the hands of the people. It is precisely this purchasing power that is constantly being eroded by the relentless rise in the prices of all essential commodities,” it says.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Two reports — one from West Bengal and another from Kerala — in People’s Democracy are noteworthy. The report from Bengal claims that ever since the Trinamool Congress came to power,“as many as 65 Left Front leaders,activists and supporters have been brutally killed by the TMC goons.” It adds that there is a “massive attack” on the political opponents of the TMC and over 600 offices of the CPM have been ransacked and captured.

The report from Kerala reproduces a statement issued by the Kerala state unit on the killing of a prominent CPM rebel,for which the party is under suspicion. Some of its cadres and local-level functionaries have been arrested in connection with the case. The statement says that “venomous,erroneous campaigns” unleashed against the party are part of a conspiracy against the CPM,which asserts that it had no connection with the murder as “propagated by the enemies of the party”.

NO TO AUSTERITY

An editorial in the CPI magazine New Age claims that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is leading India to adopt the same economic prescription proposed by the IMF and European Central Bank (ECB) that plunged most eurozone countries into a deep crisis and has pushed the European Union itself to the verge of collapse. It calls Mukherjee “confused” and says that the FM “thinks that the crisis in Greece has deepened because electors have rejected a particular party. The popular verdict in Greece is not just against a political party,but it is the rejection of the austerity-based economic bailout proposed by IMF and ECB”.

The article claims that India is facing a crisis due to the “policies of economic neoliberalism” to which most “bourgeois political parties” are committed. It argues that any cut in public spending may further aggravate the crisis. “Mukherjee in the last budget had targeted Rs 40,000 crore through (the) sale of PSUs. This year too he has fixed the target at Rs 30,000 crore. It is like selling the house

silver (to keep) the kitchen alive. All these are bad omens for the country,” it says.