By Prakash Karat


SIGNPOST 9: Issues that matter


978-81-87496-73-1, paperback, pp. 120, Rs 95/$ 5 (Rs 66.50/$ 3.50 for Book Club Members)
To buy: http://www.leftword.com/bookdetails.php?BkId=193&type=PB

PRAKASH KARAT is General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He is the author of Language, Nationality and Politics in India (1972), and editor of A World to Win: Essays on the Communist Manifesto (LeftWord 1999) and Across Time and Continents: A Tribute to Victor G. Kiernan (LeftWord 2003).

• Eminent Persons’ team visit Sardar Sarovar affected areas in Narmada Valley for fact finding
• Public Hearings in 3 States exposes the blatant violations of law and rehabilitation policy

There was an air of investigation in the Narmada Valley when the Sardar Sarovar affected people disposed in the Public Hearings in the 3 States – M.P., Maharashtra and Gujarat, held by a team of eminent and concerned citizens of India. The panel that undertook the serious exercise if fact finding through hearings consisted of Shri L.C. Jain, former member of Planning Commission and former Indian High Commission to South Africa, Shri S.C. Behar, former Chief Secretary of State of M.P., Shri Bharat Chhaparwal, former Vice–Chancellor of Indore University, Prof. Krishna Mazumdar, Delhi University, Prof Johannes Manjrekar, M.S. University, Vadodara (Gujarat), Shri S.G. Vombatkere, Major General (Retd), Smt Devaki Jain, noted Feminist, writer and activist and Adv. N.D. Suryavanshi, Dhule (Maharashtra).

Naftana Press Release
Embargoed until 12:01am Sunday September 9th
 
Iraq’s oil workers hold summit against oil privatization plans:
Opposition to Iraq’s controversial oil law intensifies this Sunday, as critics come together in a major conference in Basra, under the slogan “Oil wealth belongs to the Iraqi people.” Iraq’s oil workers, oil experts, and civil society leaders will meet to express their views on the law, and plan their campaign against it.

Monthly e-newsletter from Focus on the Global South, India


Content summary:

The most significant political issue currently in the country is the India-USA Nuclear Deal. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is holding the Parliament and the people of the country to ransom by refusing to wait for debate and discussion before going ahead with operationalising the deal. This is despite the majority in Parliament being opposed to the deal. The left parties have pointed out that the controversial deal is not about nuclear energy as much as it is about strategic tie up with USA, a step that is extremely dangerous, not to mention unethical. President Bush wants India as an ally in order to use its territory for its war plans in West Asia and also to checkmate China. PM Singh who signed a Joint Statement with President Bush, covering a wide range of sensitive issues, soon after assuming office treads the same flawed path on the Nuclear Deal.

This issue carries a letter from three eminent jurists questioning the claim of the executive that the deal need not be debated and passed by the Indian Parliament Added to this angle, other wider questions on the deal need to be addressed. About the viability of nuclear energy, the issue of nuclear testing and weapons on one hand and disarmament on the other.