“How Washington Made the Rich Richer—And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class” On Capitol Hill, Senate Republicans are threatening to filibuster every bill until the Democrats agree to extend the Bush-era tax cuts to all income groups. The Obama administration and many Democrats want to retain the lower rates only for individuals with an [...]
Seven-hundred some bases all over the globe, In places we don’t even know. Troops, ships and drones all over they roam, There’s no where our armies don’t go. We garrison the planet, north, south, east and west, Occupy all seven seas. On this modern day empire the sun never sets, A bully will do what [...]
A large majority of the population does not attain the minimum calorie levels for rural and urban areas which form the original basis of the official Indian poverty line methodology (87 per cent of the rural population gets less than the rural cut-off of 2400 calories/day, and 64.5 per cent of the urban population gets [...]
Today, the movement for Azaadi( Freedom) is led by the youth who grew-up seeing their parents thrashed by soldiers. They identify India with army and paramilitary forces. Their worldview is overshadowed by their experience of death, depredation and degradation. They have been robbed of their dignity and humanity. They are not afraid of the guns. They are [...]
Barack Obama’s Iraq speech last night is an impressive entry in the annals of war propaganda. In it, he glosses over a criminal war as ‘a remarkable chapter’ in US history, and creates the false impression that the occupation of Iraq is over. He places the responsibility rebuilding a society out of the rubble we [...]
A flurry of strikes in Honda parts plants in China has produced the longest and most significant work stoppages and wage gains for workers there in recent years. Is this the opening wave in a tide of resistance that will lead to a transformation of work and labor in China? The beginning of the end [...]
In China’s factories, pay and protest are on the rise. That is good for China, and for the world economy The Economist, Jul 29th 2010 CHEAP labour has built China’s economic miracle. Its manufacturing workers toil for a small fraction of the cost of their American or German competitors. At the bottom of the heap, [...]
Foreign direct investment coming to China created a laboratory for the reform of labor practices, and the politically sensitive reforms to China’s domestic or state-owned enterprise sector could commence as this sector adopted the labor contracts and workplace norms found in the foreign-invested sector. Not that the process went smoothly, but the Chinese Communist Party [...]
Egypt’s State-Controlled Unions Under Pressure With the authoritarian state excerting such efforts to manipulate and control the unions – by suspending all resemblance of internal democracy – the line between economic and political demands grows very thin. Any worker raising his or her voice against bad working conditions of low salaries is also engaging in [...]
Bhopal marked the horrific beginning of a new era. One that signalled the collapse of restraint on corporate power. Over 20,000 killed. Over half a million victims maimed, disabled or otherwise affected. Compensation of around Rs.12,414 per victim on average on the 1989 value of the rupee. ($470 million or Rs.713 crore. And that divided [...]