Tag Archives: Economic Crisis

Centre watch, Government

Modi says the economy isn’t so bad; He’s right – it’s worse

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by Samarth Bansal and Aman Sethi

On October 4, Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered a robust defence of his government’s management of the economy, shortly after the Reserve Bank of India lowered its Gross Value Added (GVA) growth estimates for the current fiscal year from 7.3% to 6.7%.

Since then, the ruling party has been pains to push a positive narrative on the economy,  extent of emailing clips of the speech to journalists who write about the economy.

So, what is the current state of the economy? Here’s a reality check.

How many jobs has the economy created?

Modi said: “Upto March 2014, the subscriber base of the Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) stood at 3.26 crore. Over the last three years, the numbers increased to 4.8 crore. Some people forget that this number can’t increased without a corresponding increase in employment.”

Reality Check: EPFO numbers have increased, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that total employment has increased. In July this year, this jump in EPFO subscribers was attributed to a government amnesty scheme which allowed firms to come clean on their actual staff strength without being penalized. In a detailed note, Mahesh Vyas, Managing Director and CEO of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), explained why using EPFO data as a proxy for job creation is “fraught with danger.”

Referring to the jump in the subscriber base, Vyas wrote: “This is not new employment. It is merely enrollment of employed persons into EPFO.”

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Government, Politics

A Quick Analysis of the Independence Day Speech by President Rajapaksa

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“There is great chaos under heaven – the situation is excellent.” Mao Zedong quoted by Slavoj Zizek a year ago amidst the revolt against Mubarak in Egypt.

Given recent developments, I am jotting down a quick analysis of the positions, concerns and silences in President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Independence Day speech today. The tone and substance of this speech is slightly different from the last few Independence Day speeches characterised by triumphalism and exuberance. The context of the speech is the mounting protests on the ground and increasing economic pressures.

The location of the speech in the historical city of Anuradhapura and the reference to Kebethigollawa in Anuradhapura District – the site of a horrific LTTE attack on a civilian bus in 2007 with tens of lives lost and scores injured which contributed to shifting the Sinhala public opinion fully behind the war effort – are attempts to remind the public of the horrors of war, the war victory and to mobilise Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. The solution, at the outset of the speech to all of Sri Lanka’s woes, is emphasised as the government’s “giant development works” as part of the march from “backwardness to modernity”.

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Capitalism, Empire/ Imperialism, Frontiers, Movements

Tens of Thousands Protest G20 Summit

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‘They hoped for ten thousand, but in the end more than three times that number turned out on London’s streets today for the biggest mass demonstration since the beginning of the economic crisis’, writes a report in the Guardian.
London march, courtesy Associated Press
London march, courtesy Associated Press

According to another report: Tens of thousands of people marched across central London Saturday to demand jobs, economic justice and environmental accountability, kicking off six days of protest and action planned in the run-up to the G20 summit next week.

More than 150 groups threw their backing behind the “Put People First” march. Police said around 35,000 attended the demonstration, but there were large gaps in the line of protesters snaking its way across the city toward Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park.

Read the full report here.

What is significant about the protests this time round, is that ordinary people are not ready any more to be the sacrifiical lambs while the big corporations are bailed out. ‘Capitalists, you are the crisis’ and ‘We won’t pay for their crisis’ are in fact some of the important and key slogans of the current round of protests.

Capitalism, Debates, Everyday Life, Media politics, Politics

The Happy Consciousness

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Watching the world tumble down around us, the holy markets especially, what has amused and angered is the way in which the media refuses to let go of its Sunny Disposition on Life, the Universe and Everything. This would be pathetic if it wasn’t so rampant. The Times of India has plumped up its Delhi Times this weekend to ten pages filled with exhortations to shop and full-page ads on shiny commodities. Its spectacularly vacuous Sunday Times is bursting with stories about celebrities valiantly keeping up the Diwali spirit, and thumbing their noses at the looming depression by buying more Louis Vuitton bags.

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