Interview with Raghuram Rajan - Part I

POV

"Many of India's billionaires have made money by their proximity to govt"

The Bhopal-born Raghuram Rajan was the youngest person to be appointed as the International Monetary Fund's chief economist in 2003. In 2005,he was almost prescient about the downturn. Now, he's out with a new book, 'Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten The World Economy', that explores the global imbalances that lie at the root of the financial crisis. Shankar Raghuraman met up with Rajan to discuss everything from wealth to privatisation by stealth ...

You refer in your book to the fact that India has the second largest number of billionaires per trillion dollars of GDP as a "dubious distinction". Why?

It was second largest to Russia before the crisis, but I would suspect it is probably now the largest. I don't think there is a problem with wealth creation. I think one of the virtues of the new economy is that we actually celebrate the creation of wealth. I mean so many poor boys want to be like Bill Gates. I do think there is a problem if much of this wealth comes from proximity to the government. If you look at the areas where we have so many billionaires, many of them are not software entrepreneurs; it's things like land, real estate, natural resources and areas that require licences. Some (of our businessmen ) have genuinely created entrepreneurial firms that have done wonderful things. But there are other areas which are less competitive and where proximity to government helps. That's a worrisome factor. In the longer run, these things will correct themselves, sometimes. But you could go the way of Mexico. The way Mexico has gone is a situation where you essentially have oligarchies counterbalanced by strong unions and both have in a sense shut down economic growth. This is the famous middle-income trap that Mexico is in. Well, we're still not middle-income, but we could get trapped before then if we don't watch out for the need for ensuring that we have competition, ensuring that a few entities don't grab all the benefits that are coming from economic growth.

Are you suggesting that what's happening in India now is a sort of crony capitalism...

I would think that we are in a position to get to a more free enterprise form of capitalism than any of the fast growing developing economies primarily because we have a much more democratic set-up and we have in a sense an entrepreneurial spirit that has developed over many centuries. I wouldn't so much call it crony capitalism as oligarchic capitalism and I would argue that there is a danger that if we let the nexus between the politician and the businessman get too strong, we could shut down competition. That could slow us down tremendously and also maybe create questions eventually for our democracy. So, I would think this is one area - competition, transparency, more openness about government contracts, more openness about land deals - these are things we need to be working on.

You use a very interesting phrase in your book - the "privatization by stealth of the state in India". What exactly are you referring to?

It's more than that. I worry that in the areas where there isn't adequate governance, we are letting the private sector determine things that should naturally be the prerogative of the state. For instance, take the SEZ scheme where the whole apparatus of setting up the infrastructure for any area - because we don't have the entities capable of creating the apparatus - we are giving it over to the private sector but in many situations not necessarily charging an adequate return for the state for giving up the prerogative. Essentially, it's telling them, 'you make your money from real estate and so on, but in the process create the infrastructure that we cannot.' That to my mind is privatization by stealth. If there was an open auction and you got people bidding the price, that would be fine. But we don't do that and that is something we should be asking more questions about.

You also refer to land as arguably the single biggest issue in India today and you ascribe that to the fact that title to property is not clearly defined. Surely there is more to the land issue than that?

Absolutely. I argue that one of the great hindrances to inclusion, to greater equity in growth, is the fact that the rural economy has not been brought in or connected to the urban economy. We still have 50% living in rural areas, not all of them employed in agriculture, but a large portion. China during its phase of rapid growth has had tremendous migration into the cities. We haven't had as much, but it could well happen. We can't afford that. We can't also afford to have this dual track growth with the rural areas lagging behind. So we need to connect the rural areas to the urban areas through a tremendous growth in infrastructure. In creating this infrastructure, one of the biggest impediments that we face, that China for example never faced, is land acquisition. Increasingly we find that to get the land for infrastructure, for industry etc, you have to deal with farmers. It's not just farmers, it's landless labour, it's not just landless labour, it's the politicians who surround that whole process and want to exacerbate grievances. This whole negotiation process around land acquisition is the virtue of democracy, but it's also the weakness of democracy because it takes too long. We need to find a transparent process by which if in fact there is a ton of money to be made (and there is; this discussion about 'oh, they're converting prime farmland to industrial use' is such nonsense; every time you convert farmland to industrial use you are getting productivity that is many times more, so there is money to be shared), we need to find a transparent, equitable way of sharing it in such a way that you minimize political protests. We need to cut the ground from under the people who are using this as a vehicle to further their political interests.

But how do we create that transparency? Some of it is about title. If you have clear title you can actually bargain with those people. One of the reasons why many industrialists want to invoke the state in that bargaining process is because they are not sure of the title. If they buy the land, who knows who is going to come and stake a claim later. So they invoke the state. Posco, for example, could have gone and bought that land. It would have been minor in the whole scheme of things. But they wanted the government to do, because, one, the government had given them the assurance and, two, that ensures that the title is clear. So title is one part of it. But there are also people who have no title to the land but have natural employment there who are going to be dispossessed. How to create training opportunities for them? There is a whole rehabilitation process we need to think about, but we need to think about how it can be done quickly. I mean, Posco has been in a land acquisition frame for 5 years now. Well, at this point we're talking still about whether the environmental clearances have been given. It doesn't create a great image for us outside. But it also says that there are lots of things we need to get in place. We need a clear land acquisition Bill; one is in Parliament, but hasn't been passed. We need clear and transparent ways of compensating those who are dispossessed, but we also need clear title so that land can be acquired without getting into this endless battle with the government being brought in.

You said you hoped that migration from the villages to the towns will not happen in India on the scale it had in China. To what extent does a scheme like the NREGS help in this?

It is a temporary, stop-gap measure. But as a poor country we can't afford to keep paying these subsidies. We must create real jobs, not make-work jobs. I am not saying some of the NREGS jobs are not real jobs, NREGS is doing things that were otherwise not being done. But we need to create jobs that move the rural worker to the productivity levels of a manufacturing or service worker. That means working on at least four fronts. One, creating infrastructure to connect that rural worker to the modern economy. Second, education to create the capabilities for him to work in the modern economy. Third, health - give him the right healthcare right from early childhood. And, fourth, financial inclusion so that he has the ability to save, to get insurance. Credit is one, but not the main, aspect of financial inclusion. But I think there are huge benefits to all this. We keep talking of the population dividend. If we give them all this, they are part of the population dividend. But if we don't give them all this, they are part of the population curse. We need to solve that problem before it becomes much bigger than it already is.

You have suggested that the government should close down schools or dispensaries that are not functioning properly. But who would then provide those services to the poor?

I am not saying close down the existing schools or dispensaries without first creating an alternative; that would be stupid. I would say subject them to increasing competition. You would be surprised at how possible that is. Take schools. There are many states where the government school is so dysfunctional that people are willing to take their kid out of it and put them in a private school.

Now these aren't your Delhi public schools. These are local little private schools working out of two rooms, which are being taught by high school graduates, not the BA or BSc Pass who teach in the government school who also have a B Ed. These are high school graduates who are getting as good if not better educational outcomes because they are there, they actually show up at the school, they try and teach.

Isn't that a sub-optimal solution? Isn't it better to demand that the government school actually functions?

Absolutely. But how do you ensure that? That is my point. My point is, create more competition. You don't do it by requiring all those private schools to have playgrounds and have B Ed teachers - that's not going to happen tomorrow. Some of our government proposals are in that direction. The RTE Act mandates that we improve facilities in those private schools without giving a path for how to do that, while requiring nothing of the government schools. What you need is a system where there is much more competition. This is not to say the government plays no role. The key role of the government is to provide the kind of structure in which people can choose and to impose penalties on those entities that face, in a sense, the wrath of the marketplace. If you have a government school that cannot attract any students or attracts very few students, why should it continue functioning? The key here is to empower the people you are trying to help and this is where direct (money) transfers to them is a far better way of empowering them than making them hostage to the government delivery system - whether it is the PDS system, the health delivery system or the government school system.

My idea would be a two-pronged approach - don't close anything down. Make government the certifier of quality. People can't tell a private dispenser from a quack. The quacks need to be shut down. Currently the government is not doing enough of that, it needs to do more.

Apart from certification and regulation, the government may provide some services of its own but those services should be subject to the choice of the people being served. Right now we have a top-down mentality that we are providing these people charity so they have to accept the garbage that we inflict on them whether it is any good or not. Once we empower them by making direct transfers to them, by giving them vouchers or things like that, they have a choice. They can either continue patronizing the government school or they can go across the street. And if a lot them take their children out of the government school and put them in the private school, that's telling you something about the quality being provided by the government school. At that time, the government should be brave enough to say, 'ok you guys, you have one year to shape up. If you don't attract enough students despite that, we're going to put you out of a job.' A poor country cannot afford a government that doesn't work. It must be subject to competition of the people who are ostensibly being served. When you let the dispenser behave as if he is providing a charity rather than a service that people have a right to demand, obviously he'll show up when he wants, close down when it suits him.

I've been to the CGHS, I've seen the extent of rudeness that you sometimes get there. And I actually wore decent clothes. I can imagine how much worse a poor person had to face when he went to the same dispensary. So, how can the poor command respect? By empowering them with money and that we need to do more of. The government has some very bright ideas on this. The UID scheme, properly implemented, could be the basis for direct transfers. Other countries have done it - Mexico and Brazil have run very, very successful programmes. Maybe we can't directly import those ideas, but we need to look at them. We need to think more about empowering the poor, which means giving them resources as well as information and letting them make the choices rather than having the patriarchal attitude that we know what is best for them and we are going to provide it whether they want it or not.

NEXT WEEK: PART II OF INTERVIEW

From the Times of India

Public Interest in Maoist Ideology at all time high

As you type in the search box on Google Web Search , Google Suggest offers searches by other users that are similar to the one you're typing.
Some notable changes that have appeared in the suggested terms when one searches for cpi maoist is the emergence of three new keywords cpi maoist constitution,cpi maoist ideology and cpi maoist manifesto.

How Google Suggest works

As you type, Google Suggest returns search queries based on other users' search activities. These searches are algorithmically determined based on a number of purely objective factors (including popularity of search terms) without human intervention. All of the queries shown in Suggest have been typed previously by other Google users. The Suggest dataset is updated frequently to offer fresh and rising search queries. In addition, if you're signed in to your Google Account and have Web History enabled, you'll see search queries from relevant searches that you've done in the past. More

Flames of the Snow - Maoist Documentary

An Indian journalist's documentary film on the Maoist uprising in Nepal has finally won its battle with the Indian censors after a panel, headed by veteran Bollywood actress Sharmila Tagore, gave it the green light.

It was a moment of triumph for Anand Swaroop Verma, whose 125-minute documentary, Flames of the Snow, was approved for public screenings by the Revising Committee of India's Central Board of Film Certification without being asked to delete any scenes.

Last month, citing the growing Maoist violence in India, the Board had declined to allow the film, saying "any justification or romanticisation of the ideology of extremism or of violence, coercion, intimidation in achieving its objectives would not be in the public interest, particularly keeping in view the recent Maoist violence in some parts of the country". However, Verma, who is considered close to Nepal's Maoist leadership, challenged the decision and the film was viewed in New Delhi last week by six members of the Board's Revising Committee, including its chairman and veteran actor Sharmila Tagore.

"Finally I won the battle," a jubilant Verma told IANS on the eve of flying to Kathmandu Friday to hold consultations with Maoist chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda and other senior leaders of the formerly banned party.

"I got the certificate without a single cut."

The Board however asked Verma to add a disclaimer, saying the views expressed in the film by various persons underlying the Maoist ideology were those of the author and producer and that the documentary was not against any person or country.

In reply, Verma pointed out that the documentary carried interviews with 16 people, including two prominent leaders of the Nepal Maoist party, and a Nepal Police officer.

"They are expressing their own views," Verma told the Board. "The author or producer can't put his words into their mouth. This is not a feature film where author provides them dialogues to read before camera. This is a documentary film."

Finally, a compromise was reached with a new disclaimer that says the substance of the documentary has been compiled from various media publications. The views expressed are those of the individuals interviewed and it is not the intention of this documentary to offend the sensibilities or sentiments of any country or individual.

The film begins with the founding of the Shah dynasty in Nepal in 1770 by the first powerful king of the clan, Prithvi Narayan Shah. It covers nearly 250 years of absolute rule, first by the kings and then by the Rana prime ministers, punctuated with people's rebellions.

It ends with the formal abolition of monarchy after a historic election in 2008 that saw the Maoists emerge victorious to head the new government of Nepal.

Flames of the Snow is directed by Verma and New Delhi-based Ashish Srivastava, formerly associated with Discovery channel, and produced by a Kathmandu-based human rights organisation, Group for International Solidarity.

It includes an interview with Maoist supremo Prachanda, describing the genesis of the armed movement in 1996.

The documentary made its debut in Kathmandu in April 2008, during the last days of the Maoist government, when it was watched by Prachanda and other Maoist leaders.

Now Verma wants to hold public screenings of the documentary in Nepal as well.

Ironically, while Flames of the Snow passed unscathed at the hands of the Indian censors, the Nepal Censor Board asked Verma for a cut.

A brief scene of unrest that shows Palestinians burning Israeli and American flags will not be shown during the screenings in Nepal as the Nepal government's foreign policy is to maintain good relations with all nations and 2010 marks the 50th year of diplomatic ties between Kathmandu and Tel Aviv.

The Indian censors' decision comes as Indian film director Ananth Mahadevan's Red Alert: the War Within, a film focusing on the impact of the armed movement in rural India, released in India this month.

Read more at: NDTV Movies

Guns and Daughters - Documentary on women maoists by Shikha Trivedy

It is a story of poverty, desperation and girls talking up guns at an early age because violence is the only way out. But what after that ?

Duration : 18 Minutes

Includes profile of Anuradha Gandhy


Link to Video

Chidambaram's speech at meeting of Chief Ministers of Left Wing Extremism affected States

The meeting of Governor/Chief Ministers of Left Wing Extremism affected States, convened by the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, got underway here today. Union Home Minister P.Chidambaram made opening remarks at the meeting. Following is the text of HM’s opening remarks:

“I welcome you to this meeting to review the situation in the States most affected by Left Wing Extremism. I am grateful to the Prime Minister for agreeing to chair this meeting.

The last meeting of Chief Ministers on Internal Security was held on February 7, 2010. In my opening remarks at that meeting, I had cautioned that there was a rise in the number of incidents of violence in 2009 and that “it is possible that this trend will continue in 2010 too.”

During the period January to June, 2010, there have been 1103 incidents of violence perpetrated by Left Wing Extremists. While 97 extremists were killed and 1,341 apprehended, 209 members of the security forces also lost their lives. These figures underscore the gravity of the challenge posed by Left Wing Extremism.

You are aware that the CPI (Maoist) is the principal Left Wing Extremist organisation. As long as the CPI (Maoist) was not challenged effectively, it expanded its area of activity, recruited more cadres, kidnapped more persons, extorted more money, acquired or looted more weapons, asserted its dominance in more areas, and targeted the security forces as well as civilians. Among the civilians, the CPI (Maoist) specially targeted civilians who it named as ‘police informers’. Between 2004 and 2008, on an average, 500 civilians were killed every year and many of them were killed after being named ‘police informers’.

In 2009, 591 civilians were killed, of which 211 were named as ‘police informers’. This trend has continued in the first half of 2010 too, with 325 civilians killed, of which 142 were named as ‘police informers’. We are especially concerned that ordinary citizens should be labelled as ‘police informers’ and killed by the CPI (Maoist). The CPI (Maoist) has no right to set itself up as judge, jury and executioner. In fact, it has no right to carry arms. It is a banned organisation and functions outside the pale of the law.

The State Governments and the Central Government cannot ignore these self-evident facts. Since the first meeting of Chief Ministers on Internal Security held on January 6, 2009, we have agreed upon a two pronged strategy, namely, development and police action. Since then we have remained on course and, in subsequent meetings at New Delhi and in the State capitals, we fine-tuned the strategy in accordance with State-specific requirements.

The efforts of the State Governments, assisted by Central Para-Military Forces, have met with mixed results. Key leaders of the CPI (Maoist) have been apprehended. Many attacks were repulsed. Security forces have asserted their control over some areas in the districts of Gadchiroli and Kanker. However, there have been setbacks too. The most serious setbacks were in Silda (West Bengal) and in Tarmetla, Chingawaram and Dhaudhai (all in Chhattisgarh). Besides, there was the derailment of the Gnaneswari Express that claimed the lives of 149 innocent civilians.

While there have been some lapses on the part of the security forces in failing to follow standard operating procedure, there can be no gainsaying that the attacks by the CPI (Maoist) were pre-meditated and carried out with the object of inflicting maximum damage on the security forces and overawing the people and the elected governments. We would do well to remember that the attacks by the CPI (Maoist), whether opportunistic or pre-planned, are part of their strategy of ‘armed liberation struggle’ and in furtherance of their goal of ‘seizure of political power through protracted people’s war’.

The Central Government acknowledges the primary role and responsibility of the State Governments in enforcing law and order and in confronting the challenge of Left Wing Extremism. We also acknowledge the role and responsibility of the Central Government to assist the State Governments in every way – deploying central para-military forces, sharing intelligence, funding the modernization of police forces and providing logistics and other support. In the light of the experience gained in the last six months, we have reviewed the level of support that we can provide to the State Governments and we have taken the following decisions:

(i) To provide more helicopters for logistics support, troop movement, supplies and evacuation;

(ii) To fund the establishment/strengthening of 400 police stations in the affected districts at the rate of Rs.2 crore per police station on 80:20 basis over a period of two years;

(iii) To sanction additional SPOs to the States;

(iv) To request the State Governments of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal to create a Unified Command for anti-naxal operations; to appoint a retired Major General of the Army as a member of the Unified Command; to request the four State Governments to appoint an IG as IG (anti-naxal operations) for that State; and to appoint an IG, CRPF as IG (Operations) for that State to work in close coordination with the IG (anti-naxal operations) of that State;

(v) To set up an empowered group chaired by Member-Secretary, Planning Commission to modify existing norms/guidelines in the implementation of various development schemes having regard to the local needs and conditions in the affected districts;

(vi) To advise the State Governments to implement PESA strictly and vigorously; in particular, to ensure that rights over minor forest produce are assigned to the Gram Sabhas and the inter-position of Government controlled departments/ corporations/cooperatives are removed;

(vii) To improve road connectivity in 34 districts most affected by Left Wing Extremism. A number of roads and bridges are proposed to be included, at a cost of Rs.950 crore, by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways under RRP-I.

(viii) The Planning Commission is considering a Special Development Plan for the affected districts/States with emphasis on road connectivity, primary education, primary health care and drinking water. Consultations have been held with the State Governments and it is expected that the Plan will be placed before the competent authority, shortly, for approval.

In the course of your interventions, I would request each one of you – the Governor and the Chief Ministers – to give your views on the measures that I have outlined above. I would also request you to tell us what more measures are required to be taken to curb the menace of Left Wing Extremism. I hope that each one of you will bring to the table the things that we are doing right and the things that we are doing wrong and that we can have a free and frank discussion on this very serious subject.

With these words I welcome you once again to this meeting. I shall now request the Hon’ble Prime Minister to kindly chair the meeting and guide our deliberations.

Thank you.”

Source - http://www.pib.nic.in/release/rel_print_page1.asp?relid=63222

Chhattisgarh DGP Vishwaranjan issues veiled threat to encounter Journalists

Several Journalists from Tehelka ,The Hindu, Indian express and other news channels who have interviewed Maoist leaders along website owners who post articles about Maoists are on the hit list of Security Agencies. Hem Chandra Pandey who was kidnapped from Nagpur and murdered by the APSIB was deliberately murdered along with Com Azad to send a strong message to the journalist fraternity some of whom had been giving balanced reports on the Maoist movement in India.

Journalists sympathising with Naxals under watch

Intelligence agencies monitoring the Naxal activities have started keeping tabs on journalists sympathising with Naxals on information provided by Andhra Pradesh police after the killing of a mediaperson with Naxal leader Cherukhuri Rajkumar alias Azad in an encounter recently.The surveillance includes electronic snooping,phone tapping and even physical monitoring of the movements of journalists and sympathizers in both the real and virtual worlds.

Confirming the development to UNI, highly-placed official sources here said the details gathered from Azad after the encounter have been forwarded to all the Naxal-affected states besides Chhattisgarh by the Andhra Pradesh police.

The names of mediapersons in the list of Naxal sympathisers are those who frequent the Naxal-dominated areas on the state's border with four other Naxal-affected states while also meeting the Maoist leaders.

''We cannot share everything with the media. Those mediapersons who are working for Naxals are already under watch by the intelligence agencies and action would be initiated when substantial proof is gathered against them,'' Chhattisgarh Director General of Police Vishwaranjan said.

He said one cannot stop the mediapersons from entering the jungles and interviewing the Maoist leaders but it is certainly dangerous to enter the jungle during an anti-naxal operation being carried out by the security forces.

''Nothing can be done about mediapersons who take the risk of entering the jungles during an operation and get stuck inside, they might become victims of draculas who like to feast on their blood '' Mr Vishwaranjan added.

Central Chronicle

Requirement of a professional activist in MASUM

MASUM from its inception has been an activist centric organization having zeal and passion for its cause; Torture, as primary concern. MASUM has worked with dedicated activists having clarity about human rights during the past years. MASUM is the abbreviated form of Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha. Organization and is based in West Bengal, India and was established in year 1997, just before the 50th Anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Currently the organization is going to receive financial support from UN under the United Nations Voluntary Fund  for Victims of Torture for medical, psychological, legal and social rehabilitation of torture victims. The organization also seeks to address socio-economic issues of underprivileged sections of the society with a rights based approach.


To facilitate the same we are urgently looking for a professional activist having command in English writing, making reports, proposal writing and budgeting, programme implementation, evaluation and periodical report making to the funding agencies.

Any person having above mentioned acumen with societal commitment and is ready to work from our Srirampur (Hooghly) office can apply directly with his/her resume to us. All other aspects are negotiable.
--
Kirity Roy
Secretary
Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha(MASUM)
National Convenor (PACTI)
Programme Against Custodial Torture & Impunity
26 Guitendal Lane
Howrah 711101
West Bengal INDIA
Mobile: 09903099699
Tele Fax : +91-33-2640 4118
Phone: +91-33-2640 4520
E-mail : kirityroy@gmail.com
Website : www.masum.org.in

Modified Hammer and Sickle chosen as symbol of Rupee

In what is clearly a sign of things to come in this country, a modified version of the centuries old communist symbol has been chosen as the new symbol for the rupee. AFP has more.

Current Rupee symbol

Future Rupee symbol

This could be the handiwork our closet Maoist and RBI Governor Subbarao. This is clearly an indication that Maoists have not only infiltrated the media, judiciary and human rights organisations, but even the RBI.

Com Azad murdered by Andhra Pradesh Police

Source : ICAWPI

COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)

CENTRAL COMMITTEE

North Regional Bureau

Press statement

3rd July, 2010

It is not an encounter at all!! It is a cold blooded murder by AP Police!!

Red Salutes to Martyrs com. Azad (Cherukuri Rajkumar) and com. Hem Pandey (Jitender)!!

Let us avenge the killings of the beloved comrades by the khaki clad fascist gangs of AP government!!

Azad was arrested at Nagpur on June 1^st along with com. Hem Pandey

On June 1st, the notorious Andhra Pradesh Special Branch Police for its abductions and cold blooded murders, have arrested com. Azad, Polite Bureau member and Spokesperson of CPI (Maoist), and com. Hem Pandey, a zonal committee level comrade in Nagpur city around 11'o clock when they went to meet a comrade who was supposed to receive them from Dandakarnaya zone. Com. Azad reached Nagpur around 10 am on the fateful day along with com. Hem Pandey, after travelling from long distance. With specific information, the lawless goons of AP SIB abducted them, perhaps flown them in a helicopter, to Adilabad jungles near Maharashtra border and killed them point block and in cold blood.

We pay our red homage to our beloved comrades and vow to take vengeance of these killers.

Life of com. Azad

Comrade Azad is one of the senior most party leaders of CPI (Maoist). He was born in Krishna district of AP, in a well to do family. He did his school education in Sainik School, at Korukonda of the present Vizianagaram District. Com. Surapuneni Janardhan, a legendary comrade of the student movement brought com. Raj Kumar into RSU in 1974. A brilliant student at the Regional Engineering College, which became famous as Radical Engineering College in those days, he finished his Mtech in Chemical Engineering and moved to Vishakhapatnam as per the Party direction. He was the second president of AP Radical Students Union till 1984. He was the catalyst behind many all Andhra wide student agitations and peoples movements in that period. He became the district committee member of vizag unit of the CPI (ML) (PW). He moved length and breadth of India, to organize the Seminar on Nationality question held in Madras (now Chennai) in 1981. He was shifted to Karnataka in 1982 and com. Azad was one of the founder members of the Karnataka Party and worked as the secretary of the Karnataka State Committee. He was taken into CC, after the Central Plenum in 1990. He was the elected member of CC in the All India conference in 1995 and since then he served in CC and PB. He continued in those posts after the formation of CPI Maoist too in 2004. He has been the spokes person of the CC since then.

Known for his simple life and hard work; voracious reading and brilliant analyses of situations, crystal clear articulation and sharp logic, and fine organizational skills, he contributed widely to the revolutionary movement in many spheres. He wrote profusely to the People's March, Peoples war (theoretical organ of the CPI (Maoist), and to the Maoist Information Bulletin. He wrote a fine critique of the intellectuals of AP, who got disillusioned and lost faith in revolutionary movement after the 1990 events of collapse of soviet imperialism and its satellite regimes.

In his death, the Indian revolutionary movement lost an exemplary comrade and a shining star, who served the movement more than three and half decades.

Just before his last journey, he received questions for interview from a well known magazine. He replied that he was in the journey and would send the answers as early as possible.

It is not Sukhdev, but com. Hem Pandey of Uttarakhand who was killed by APSIB

Com. Hem Pandey, 30, hailed from a nearby village of Pithoragarh town of Uttarakhand State. He did his MA history in Nainital University and got himself registered in PhD. While he was in college, he was active member of AISA, and slowly realizing he pseudo revolutionary character of AISA politics, he moved to the radical groups, later in 2001 he joined the then CPI (ML) (PW). He organized peasantry in the mountainous villages in Almora district, taking up umpteen numbers of issues of peasantry, including the problems arose out of Binsar Sanctuary. Soft-spoken, bespectacled, lean and energetic Com. Hem won the love of people of that region. He was moved into more important works in 2005. He had done his new assignments with patience and endurance. His appetite for learning new things, reading more and more, and zeal for penning his ideas are things for the emulation for all the revolutionaries. He has written various articles to newsmagazines under various pen names. We request the civil rights organisations to demand the A P police to send the body of com. Hem Pandey to his bereaved mother who is in Haldwani, Uttarakhand state, who is his sole surviving parent.

APSIB- the Indian avatar of Mossad

The Andhra Pradesh Special Intelligence Bureau, which has been partially trained partially by the Mossad, has acquired the notoriety of its master trainer-Mossad, in India. It has been moving across the state borders, and conducting abductions and cold blooded murders with impunity. This is all happening with clear blessings of Manmohan- Sonia and Chidambaram. This fascist gang has established its tentacles all over India, resorting the killings of revolutionaries, scoffing at the recent AP high court judgement that all encounters are to be first booked as murders under IPC 302, Ultimaely these killers will be taken to task by the revolutionary masses.

Will Chidambaram expect CPI (Maoist) to sit for talks with his blood on his hands of com. Azad and com. Hem Pandey?

CPI (Maoist) never contested or raised any hue and cry in the case of real encounters. The AP Police is resorting to globbeian lies, not believed even by gullible. CPI (Maoist) stood for truth and accountability to the people, and always stated facts. There is no such programme of Azad going to Sarkepally forest of Adilabad. Azad was going to discuss with our comrades, inter alia, the concrete proposals of well meaning people like Swamy Agnivesh about particular dates for the mutual cease fire. He was a carrying the confidential letter of Swamy Agnivesh written to Azad dated- 26^th June 2010. Will Chidambaram expect CPI (Maoist) to sit for talks with his blood on his hands of com. Azad and com. Hem Pandey? He calls repeatedly to us to abjure violence? Killing the unarmed comrades by AP Police with your blessings - is it not like devils chanting scriptures?

White lies by AP Police

When there is no movement and organization in Adilabad, what is the necessity of Azad going to Azad? That the police found AK47 is again white lie. He alighted from a train around 10 am along with com. Hem Pandey in Nagpur Station, and was caught by the APSIB unarmed. Is the government following its own constitution of article 21? Is the government following kernel of the Geneva Convention that "defenceless persons" should not be harmed? Is it not utter hypocrisy and hoax that on one hand the government is placing the prevention of torture bill and the police every minute resorting to the torture of the detained? It is a concocted story of encounter repeated ad nauseum, by the AP Police, churned out to the media umpteen times. The right life, guaranteed under the constitution is mocked and the right to be produced within 24 hours of the arrest is metamorphasized into killing within 24hours of arrest, so that there is no scope for any redressal by their near and dear.

We appeal to the civil rights organizations, democrats, patriots to raise to raise to the occasion thoroughly investigate this fake encounter as an example of extra judicial killing that are happening in scores in this country and bring out the truth before the people.

Ajay,

Spokes Person,

CPI (Maoist)

No Hope For this country

Notorious Party Pooper Santosh Hegde resigned last week after failing to gatecrash into the Yeddi-Reddy Saffron Cheddis Loot Party.

Mr Santosh Hegde took 70 years to realise that you cannot change a system by being a part of it... Better late than never...

Interview with E N Rammohan on the CRPF and the CPI(Maoist)

‘I do not believe the Maoists are exploiters’

Distinguished IPS officer E N Rammohan, a former BSF director general who was especially called by the Centre to look into the massacre of 75 CRPF personnel in Dantewada on April 6 this year, is a deeply perturbed man. To him, the unfolding labyrinth of Maoist insurgency is being tackled in an utterly unprofessional manner by the Indian State.

And, if this course is not corrected quickly, he says it could develop into an inferno, engulfing vast tracts of the country, including urban centres which the government now consider as safe zones.

Despite being a thoroughbred police officer from the Assam cadre who dealt with insurgencies in the troubled states of the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir,

Rammohan's prescription to tackle the Maoists insurgency relies far less on security perspective and more on the socioeconomic aspects. "Give land to the tiller and forests back to the tribals. Implement these two things with the help of strong willed and honest administration," he says. "Plus, bring down the vast gap between the rich and the poor and you would start witnessing that Maoists are on the wane."

In a freewheeling three hour chat in Delhi where he lives, Rammohan lets out his anger against a social system without any remorse. "You are wrong if you think that doling out money through funds and schemes can help solve the problem. The money will be routed back here, to Delhi, in to the deep pockets of corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen. The answer, as I said, is absolute implementation of the Land Ceiling Act and giving forests and its resources, including the lucrative mineral wealth, back to the tribals," he retorts.

"Why cannot we, a welfare state based on socialist tenets, do the same with our tribal people that America and Australia did for their past mistakes against Red Indians and Aborigines by seeking their forgiveness and giving back reserved lands to them?" he says. Despite the fact that his family lost vast tracts of land during the "Land to the Tiller" movement in his native Kerala, Rammohan is an ardent supporter of late Communist chief minister EMS Namboodaripad. "I have no regrets, no illusions. EMS did the right thing. It is because of his policies that the Maoist insurgency could not take root there. If other states followed the same exa mple you would see that more than half of the problem is gone."

"You know it is caste and the unbridled exploitation carried through it that is the root cause of the problem. For how long can you hide that the majority of the people have been reeling under this exploitation for ages? Can their aspirations for a just society be quelled by quickfix solutions like deploying security forces or the Army? No, it is a gross misnomer and the sooner our leaders understand this, the better for the country."

"If you bring the Army in, the situation will improve temporarily as they will quell the rebellion. But the quiet will remain only for some time. It is like putting a lid on a boiling pot only to let it explode later. Without the permanent removal of social injustice the insurgency will come back again, perhaps more viciously," he adds.

Rammohan's take on the Maoists is radically different from most of his colleagues. "I do not believe in the propaganda that they are extortionists and exploiters. Their leadership comes from a determined lot of people who lost faith in our system because of its failure to remove injustices, and took to a violent ideology to form an equal society. Their intention is not bad, the method is.

"Ownership of the land has always been with three upper castes - the Kshatriyas, Brahmins and the Vaishyas. Among these, the Vaishyas or the Baniyas - the Marwaris, Chettiyars, Reddys and the Kammas - have been the most vicious. Besides land, they also exploit the lower castes and the tribals while doing business with them. The police - the supposed protectors - also help the baniya, the exploiter and not the poor tribal, the exploited. Naturally, he goes to the Maoist fold that has given him justice by distributing land and punishing the baniya," he laments.

"It is beyond my comprehension why our State develops cold feet when it comes to removing injustices. Why cannot India, the so called welfare that has socialism as one of its tenets, make the society more equal?" he questions and then proposes his own remedy.

"The upper castes should be prevented from entering the forests altogether. The baniyas, including their modern avatar, the corporate, should be barred from having business and only the tribals should be allowed to carry out their trade, including mining, through cooperatives owned by them."

The genesis of the Maoist insurgency, according to Rammohan, goes back to the Tebhaga Movement of 1946 when the undivided CPI started working with the exploited peasants in the Rangpur and Dinajpur regions of Bengal and forcibly took away land from the exploiter landlords. It then spread to the Telangana region during 1946 to 1951. And then came the Naxalbari insurrection of 1967 after the split of the CPI.

"It spread among Girijans (tribals) of Srikakulam in 1968 and during the same time to Midnapore and Birbhum districts of West Bengal and then among peasants of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Its spread widened to Andhra, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and Bihar again in 1980s. Wherever you see, the spread took place because our so called welfare democracy could not get the poor their due," says Rammohan, getting back to his sober self.

The former DG, who still has a gait that can rival officers half his age, differs hugely with the present government policy of dealing with the Maoists with the help of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

"Instead of hunting down Maoist guerrillas, the paramilitary forces should be used to enforce the right of the tribals on forests and its wealth. And in place of the CRPF, the Centre should use more disciplined and resolute force like BSF and ITBP. The state police should be put under strict supervision so that it works only in the interest of the tribals," he says.

Via - Indian Express