India
Cricket, excess and market mania
By Srinivasan Ramani
The Indian Premier League is seen as a bonanza for cricket viewers, players and corporate owners, but hidden behind the glitz is the fact that it represents a distorted form of commodity and consumer excess. The Indian Premier League (IPL), a corporate-driven tournament featuring a set of city teams playing Twenty20 cricket, has made news with a multimillion dollar player auction. Players from various cricket-playing nations were ``bought'' and ``sold'' through bids made by the corporate-owned teams (the franchisees).
Cricket in India has become the only sport that has captured widespread mass and media attention. The popularity of the sport has increased in leaps and bounds, and the way the sport has been managed and administered has reflected the dominant mode of economic transactions in the country.
India: CPI (M) -- Reconciling `anti-imperialist' rhetoric with `neoliberal constraints'
Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist (Liberation)
March 5, 2008 -- The draft political resolution released by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for its 19th Congress provides quite a revealing commentary on the opportunist political trajectory of the party. The resolution is characteristically elaborate about the description of the international and national situation. But when it comes to spelling out the concrete positions and role of the party, the resolution is rather vague and evasive. And as for the debate that the party now increasingly faces in its own circles, the resolution dismisses everything as a big anti-CPI(M) conspiracy!
India: CPI (ML)'s Kolkata Congress: People's Resistance, Left Resurgence
January 7, 2008 -- The Eighth Congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) [CPI (ML)] has been held successfully in Kolkata. Held in the 150th anniversary of the First Indian War of Independence and the birth centenary of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, the 8th Congress boldly underlined the glorious anti-imperialist legacy of the Indian people.
Expand and strengthen the party organisation!
Back to good old Marx in the brave new world of globalisation
By Dipankar Bhattacharya
Industrial restructuring and the working class in India
By S. Kumarswamy
S. Kumarswamy is a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation and working president of the All India Central Council of Trade Unions.
Contents
The new mindset and the high sales pitch
Excerpts: manifesto of All India Agricultural Labour Association
Indian work force: an overview