PRAGOTI

Over the past two decades, no political party and alliance in South Asia has won — in a free and fair national election — the kind of overpowering victory that the Awami League and the Grand Alliance has just scored in Bangladesh. It has been a clean sweep for the Awami-led alliance; the BNP is routed, and the Jamaat-e-Islami has been blotted out.  An editorial and a news item  from the Hindu provides a broad perspective.

An article on the political crisis in Thailand. (Courtesy: Economic and Political Weekly)

World-renowned public intellectual Noam Chomsky discussed the meaning of President-elect Barack Obama’s victory and the possibilities ahead for real democratic change at a speech last week in Boston. It was his first public appearance since the election. The rush transcript of the speech is presented here along with the video and audio links. Courtesy: Democracy Now!

Member of the Central Secretariat of the CPI(M),Nilotpal Basu shares his thoughts on the terror attack in Mumbai. Rebuffing the parochial campaign that has been launched by media and the frenzied right wing apparatchiks , Comrade.Basu highlights the need for a political solution which should include the strengthening of democratic institutions, and which should be distinct from the US directed “War on Terror”.

''To the best of one’s knowledge, the session which was summoned on July 17, 2008 primarily to enable the trust vote on July 21-22 will now end somewhere in the third or fourth week of December, if one were to believe the government. This is the longest ever session of the parliament notwithstanding the fact that it will simultaneously create a record of sorts in terms of the least number of sittings. Parliament has hardly been treated with such utter contempt ever before.''

Nilotpal Basu writes in People's Democracy

Vithal Rajan reviews a book on the Burmese Junta and the dictatorship in the country. Article courtesy: Economic and Political Weekly.

India can no longer pursue its strategic and economic interests on the basis of its old colonial mindset and bureaucratised traditional tools of diplomacy.

Courtesy: The Hindu

If socialism is the future, we must build it now!

The soul of parliamentary democracy in India was destroyed during the past week.

Courtesy: Economic and Political Weekly

Cartoon: Courtesy The Hindu

Since the adoption of our republican Constitution and the inception of our parliamentary democracy, seldom has our political system faced such a serious question of credibility, as it has on the `trust vote’. Inducements, threats and allegations of offering bribes have indeed tainted the vote.

Cartoon: Courtesy The Hindu