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

Earlier this month, the Election Commission of India announced dates for the 2009 Parliamentary elections. The polls will be held in 5 phases beginning April 16 and concluding on May 13. No sooner were the dates announced did the credit/ blame game begin. The Indian National Congress (INC) quickly claimed credit for high growth rates and reducing poverty and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) blamed them precisely for the opposite. The rise of parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and regional parties will make predictions on results very difficult. Many of these parties, with the Communist Party of India –Marxist (CPM) playing a key role, have now formed a Third Front. The potency of the Third front will however depend on how BSP supremo Mayawati (who has declared her Prime Ministerial ambitions) will relate to it. The CPM released its election manifesto last week in which it promises to reverse the neo-liberal policy trajectory (see 2.d)    

 

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

The atmosphere at the 2009 World Economic Forum was predictably grim and despair ridden. Several heads of state smartly chose to ignore Davos altogether. Several key Latin American Presidents such Lula (Brazil), Chavez (Venezuela), Correa (Ecuador), Morales (Bolivia) and Lugo (Paraguay) were instead at the World Social Forum in the Brazilian Amazon listening to and learning from social movements. As Walden Bello puts it ( see Al Jazeera interview), for the past 9 years the WSF has been a consistent voice of critique and hope being put forward by peoples groups that there could be a different world from the kind of neo-liberal capitalist world that Davos represented.