South Asia Citizens Web

In a clear sign of Hindutva ideology entering school curriculum in Karnataka, the State government has adopted the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar

India has entered a new phase of competitive authoritarianism

[Statement from a labour organisation on a factory fire in Delhi]. ... The said manufacturing unit which produced high-tech electronic and surveillance equipment including CCTV sets operated without any inspection or scrutiny by authorities. This, of course, is not an isolated incident but a tip of the iceberg. The safety of Indian workers is systematically being increasingly jeopardised, as they are forced to make their living working for such firms that have been flourishing and carrying out their production without minimum safety measures.

It is no exaggeration to say that comrade May Wickramasuriya, who exemplified the workings of the working class in our recent history, was the only woman to illuminate the golden age of the Ceylon Mercantile, Industrial, and General Workers Union (CMU). I do not think twice to say that for 42 years from 1956 to 1998, she was a courageous woman who made an active contribution to the workers of this country whilst remaining in the shadow of CMU

So much has been written on the Sri Lankan economic crisis that the facts are by now quite well-known (see for instance C P Chandrasekhar, Frontline April 22): the massive build-up of external debt; the huge Value Added Tax concessions that pushed up the fiscal deficit and made the government borrow abroad even to spend domestically; the decline in foreign exchange earnings because of the pandemic that particularly hit tourist inflows; the downward pressure on the exchange rate which made many Sri Lankan workers choose the unofficial route to send their earnings home rather than the official route; the precipitous decline in foreign exchange reserves; the directive of the government to cut down on the use of chemical fertilizers to save foreign exchange that actually hit foodgrain output; and so on.