Search

Tweets from Pragoti Editorial Team

Recent comments

User login

Lead Article

Avatar: Cinema of Liberal American Guilt

Films like other performative cultural forms can speak the language of its own times, in which they have been created and situated. As a visual reflection of society in which it is contextualized, it can speak both covertly and overtly about the past and present world, and albeit can articulate politics and reflect upon philosophy as well. James Cameron’s Avatar, a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster is not an exception in this regard. Maidul Islam writes in his review of the film.

National

Reminiscence of Jyoti Basu

02_JB.jpg

Veteran CITU leader and CPI(M) Karnataka state secretary,Comrade VJK Nair remembers Jyoti Basu and his contributions to the progressive movement of Karnataka.A photo album of Com.JB's visits to Karnataka is also included here.

Elections to the JNU Students Union

jnu1.jpg

 

Dhananjay Tripathi, former president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union writes about the impasse that has resulted in no elections to the JNUSU for the past two years in the university. His plea- "There is need from the part of the government to look into matter of JNUSU elections and to save it from being ruined. It is imperative that the student community of JNU should also explore all the possibilities to re-conduct their elections according to the JNUSU constitution without further delay". An article that details the controversy over the Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations and the JNUSU elections can be found here (subscription required). 

Food Prices, Speculation and Futures' Trading

The role of future trading in commodity markets has often been a subject of controversies in India, between those who look at future markets as a guiding force for price discovery, risk sharing and market efficiency and others who contest such claims, maintaining that future trade has been responsible for speculation-led price increases, especially as at present. Prof. Sunanda Sen, formerly senior professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning (CESP), Jawaharlal Nehru University, writes.  

Syndicate content

International

The Long March in Latin America - The future of Bolivarianism

Latin America Left Turn

 Vijay Prashad provides a succinct exposition of the role of "Guerilla warfare" in Latin America today, in the context of the success of the Bolivarian project in the continent. Article courtesy Counterpunch and Students' Struggle.  

Copenhagen Summit- Need for a Just and Equitable Deal

 ''The developed countries cannot negate their `historical responsibility' and continue with their pillage of global climate at the expense of the vast majority of humanity. They need to be forced to continue to accept per capita emissions as the basis of energy equality as every human being on the planet, should have equal access to carbon space. Such inequality – per capita emissions in USA are 20 times greater than per capita emissions in India – cannot be allowed to persist.-Humanity can ill afford the tragic end in the hope of an eternal reunion in an ethereal world. Mortals need a just equitable deal. In its absence, no deal is better than a bad deal.''- Com.SItaram Yechury who is is attending the summit as part of the five member Indian parliamentary delegation.

Minaret Controversy of Switzerland: The Sign of Intolerant Europe

On the 29 November 2009, Switzerland in a very controversial referendum banned the construction of Minarets. This came as surprise for many who considered Europe as a better place to live and more secular in its societal construction. The continent, which suffered huge loss of both property, and life in two World Wars, witnessed the rise of fascism, and complete division during the cold war, seemed to bridging the gap by the continuous evolution of the European Union. In the contemporary world order international analyst visualize the EU as one of the emerging bloc but different from the US.

Syndicate content

Editorials

Pragoti salutes the nameless and the ordinary

Pragoti salutes the nameless and the ordinary whose valiance and courage in life and death will not be headlines in the chronicles of the Mumbai carnage. The immediate appeals to jingoistic nationalism and communalism by the hard and soft Hindu right, and the proposals to launch war and pass draconian laws, dished out by the mainstream media, is an attempt to ensure that the people are put through more of such terror. We stand committed to the struggles of the ordinary and the nameless people of India to fight terrorism and all political harbingers of terror.

Support the General Strike on August 20, 2008

The general strike on August 20 will be a landmark in the struggle of the workers and peasants of India against the Manmohan Singh government that is bent on proving its loyalty to the big bourgeoisie in India and its allegiance to international finance capital and by extension US imperialism. A PRAGOTI Editorial

Syndicate content

Pragoti Interviews

I am accused of romanticizing the working class: Anand Patwardhan

anand.jpg

 Anand Patwardhan's documentary film "War and Peace (Jung aur Aman)" was screened at IIT Bombay on 30th August 2009. During and after the discussion session of the documentary film, our editorial team member Anirban Ghatak took a short interview of Anand. Anand answered the questions with equal determination and conviction which we are pretty used to see in his films. Here we present the interview. 

“हमारी तरफ नजरें उठाकर देख रही है जनता”

Durga Swami

हाल के विधानसभा चुनावों और राजस्थान में वामपंथी आन्दोलन के अनुभवों के बारे में जनवादी महिला समिति की राजस्थान राज्य सचिव और सी.पी.आई.एम की राज्य समिति सदस्या दुर्गा स्वामी से प्रगति के संपादक मंडल सदस्य टिकेन्दर पंवार का विशेष साक्षात्कार।

“Socialism constitutes the only hope for overcoming human misery” — Interview with Prabhat Patnaik

Prabhat Patnaik new

But what the [financial] crisis [in the world's capital markets] does is to undermine the ideology of neo-liberalism which gives the Left a chance to intensify its struggle against neo-liberalism. And in so far as the recession that is arising will hurt not just the workers and peasants but even sections of the middle classes which have hitherto been beneficiaries of neo-liberalism, the soil for this struggle will be more fertile now. So, the short answer to this question is that the Indian policy-makers left to themselves will not change course, but we have to make them change course. Eminent economist Prabhat Patnaik replies exclusively to a set of interview questions from Pragoti's Editorial Team. Prabhat Patnaik is a leading Marxist economist, and is a professor at Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is also the vice-chairman of the Planning Board in the state of Kerala.

Syndicate content

Theory and Praxis

Critical Notes on Amartya Sen’s ‘Idea of Justice’

“Sen, a Nobel Prize winner in Economics and a Lamont Professor of Economics and Moral Philosophy at Harvard University took an intelligent and pragmatic approach by pondering over the idea of ‘enhancement of justice’ by ‘removal of injustice’ instead of imagining an a priori perfect just society, or ‘identifying perfectly just social arrangements’ or ‘just institutions’ in his book. However, the book has several deficiencies, and in this article, we would try to point out those ontological, methodological and epistemological limits/problems of Sen’s idea of justice.”

SOCIALISM AND WELFARISM

Prabhat1

Prof.Prabhat Patnaik lucidly explains the dialectical relationship between 'Socialism' and Welfarism' and argues for the necessity of 'political intervention' of the left in welfare measures for the transformation of people from 'Objects' to 'Subjects'.

The Paradox of Capitalism

Prabhat Patnaik new

J0hn Maynard Keynes, though bourgeois in his outlook, was a remarkably insightful economist, whose book Economic Consequences of the Peace was copiously quoted by Lenin at the Second Congress of the Communist International to argue that conditions had ripened for the world revolution. But even Keynes’ insights could not fully comprehend the paradox that is capitalism.

Syndicate content

Political Economy

Robert Pollin reviews Prabhat Patnaik's book, "Value of Money"

Prof.Robert Pollin, Economics Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst reviews Prof. Prabhat Patnaik's latest book, "Value of Money". The review is attached along with this post. 

The Need for a New Socialist Vision

Prabir Purkayastha argues that the Left needs to recreate a new vision of socialism by moving away from the 20th century Fordian paradigm to a new way of looking at future production systems.

Syndicate content

Reviews

Das Kapital: An Inspiring and Timeless Work

3292776440_aff74820de.jpg

Students' Struggle, the organ of the Students' Federation of India has been carrying a section roughly titled, "The book that inspired me". Economist Venkatesh Athreya recently wrote in the section, how Das Kapital inspired him. 

A Review of Dev D

dev-d-poster.jpg

It was quite a brave decision to watch another experimentation on Devdas that hit the screens last February in its Dev D avatar. The fear was entirely courtesy the shallow, pretentious, gaudy and doyen-of-kitsch rendition of Devdas as done by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The nauseating melodrama of the actors combined with the crass show of “big budget” has left in it’s trail a lot many ardent Saratchandra readers bruised and fuming. However 10 odd minutes into Anurag Kashyap’s creation and the feeling is one of having ditched an abusive old lover for a better life.

Reassessing 'Agantuk' - Satyajit Ray’s final statement as an artist

agantuk.jpg

In many ways Agantuk is an inciting film. Though there is a genuine doubt if at all the grungy middle class can really think today in the way Ray wanted them to think. The basic theme is an intellectual soul searching for a re-discovery of the lost human values. It bluntly focuses on the vices of the post-modern world. The reckless immorality of the elite class, their greed for material possessions is harshly criticized. A ‘civilized’ person was defined as the person who can wipe out an entire population with lethal weapon by just pressing a button but has awfully forgotten how to embrace an alien stranger!

Syndicate content

Commemoration

Remembering Chile

Salvador Allende

On September 11, 1973, the democratically elected government of Chile was overthrown by a military coup led by Gen. Pinochet. Beginning with the murder of Allende himself, the coup unleashed a wave of barbaric repression against democraticall-minded people in Chile in which thousands were killed and tortured. The coup and the military regime which followed it had the direct support of the US.

Fifty Years Ago: Food Movement of 1959

food2.jpg

In post-independence and post-partition Congress-ruled West Bengal, the echoes of famine continued to be heard in the 1950s. The collusion between rice mill-owners, jotdars and food hoarders created an artificial food crisis. These proprietor segments, who controlled rice distribution, also exercised a strangle-hold over the villages and formed the rural backbone of the Bengal Congress.

Syndicate content

Others

Sorry, there is no content for this category.

Syndicate content

Diaries

Jyoti Babu: A tribute from Subho Basu

 Pragoti presents before its readers a guest blog from historian Subho Basu.

For a Rational TD policy

 The people on the hills are battling for their rights in the forests. One of it happens to be the right to get timber as finished good for various purposes. This has not only been restricted but the latest policy announced by the government  also smacks of class biasedness towards the rich peasant and marginalisng the poor peasant and landless households in the countryside.
 
 
 

Organisation and struggle! The only alternative to fetch people’s demands.

armed peasants entering Ambuja's occupied territory

 

 Organisation and struggle !

                                                                                     The only alternative to fetch people's demands

 

The IPL "Snub"

Image courtesy AFP

 I wrote a piece in the Daily Times, Pakistan on the non-inclusion of Pakistani cricketers in the Indian Premier League's third season, despite their invitation to the auction process through a circuitous route. 
The piece can be read here

The Obama bank plan

The spirit is good, the content is weak.

The right scientific vision for Indo-Nepal relations

A critical take on Hisila Yami's article in the Kathmandu Post on Indo-Nepal relations. 

Right to know, coming soon

Global Times, a Chinese newspaper published under the official People's Daily, says in an editorial apropos the Google issue: "China, as seen in the past 60 years, will move forward at its own pace toward safeguarding the public's right to know and building an open and harmonious society." Couldn't have guessed that one could move too fast in safeguarding rights.

After Jyoti Basu's funeral

Our theory is out of joint with our practice and unless we can bring the two together in a new synthesis it will be very hard to defend our past gains.

Himalayan blunder

It turns out that the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) made a really silly blunder in claiming with high confidence in one of its key reports that the Himalayan glaciers would disapper by 2035 if global warming continued at the present rate.

Haiti:Beyond the Quake

Haiti.

US president Barack Obama was prompt in responding to the devastation caused by the massive earth quake in Haiti, which has reportedly taken more than hundred thousand lives and caused immense damage to the capital city,leaving more than 30 lakhs of people homeless. In his statement Obama has called for an "all out relief push" and the US marines has started to arrive in Haiti for relief work. What Obama failed to see is that the quake is an insult by nature on the injury inflicted by imperialism in Haitian soil.

Adieu, Beloved Comrade!

06slide4.jpg

A tribute to the legend of communist movement in India!

Ashok Mitra's tribute to his senior colleague Jyoti Basu

5_0.jpeg

 There are writers and then there is Ashok Mitra. The former finance minister of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) led Left Front government and one among the five to be sworn along with chief minister Jyoti Basu on June 21st, 1977 has these words to say in his homage to his erstwhile senior colleague- 

A Personal tribute to Jyoti Basu

jbmandela.jpg

Jyoti Basu was nearly 96 when he breathed his last yesterday. For someone who was born in 1979 such as myself, it is difficult to say or write anything about this legendary communist who ruled as the uninterrupted chief minister of the longest running elected government, provincial or otherwise in the world, for 23 years (1977-2000) before calling it a day. Jyoti Basu's reign coincided with a time before I reached my "political maturation", so to speak, but there are vignettes that I remember about this leader which are enough to provide a rough image of his legend for me. 

Discouraging Developments in Sri Lanka

Image courtesy www.daylife.com

Rather than considering a progressive alternative to the two presidential candidates, incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa and ex-army chief Sarath Fonseka, the major minority parties and their representatives have thrown their lot with either of the two candidates for short sighted reasons in upcoming presidential elections. 

My post on the same in the Newsclick website. 

Syndicate content