Timidity vis-à-vis international finance capital, callousness toward people, and cynicism in manipulating the electorate and legislators, have made the Modi government one of the most ultra-Right governments in the world

A country that ranks 94 among 107 countries in the Global Hunger Index can’t be said to be self-sufficient in foodgrains. The surplus stocks are due to shortage of purchasing power in peoples’ hands

The prices as well as the quantities of the agricultural produce in a free market would be far from socially optimal and are likely to be socially disastrous

India is being pushed toward a de facto unitary state, with States being kept totally out of the loop in decision-making, as seen in the new agricultural laws, goods and services tax compensation, Jammu and Kashmir bifurcation and new National Education Policy.

Advanced countries have been more open-handed in fiscal support for their economies, in particular for workers, while Third World countries have been extremely niggardly, not necessarily out of choice (except in the case of India)

It is inevitable under capitalism that every human tragedy which unleashes a crisis in this system becomes an occasion for an increase in wealth concentration, writes Prabhat Patnaik

The Left has steadfastly opposed neoliberal policies, but there are new challenges of repression and ‘othering’, unleashed by authoritarian/fascist regimes, that need to be faced now

Imperialism has been pushing countries like India to become food import-dependent and divert land devoted to foodgrain toward crops that imperialist countries can’t grow

To avoid a total collapse of the economy, the Indian government needs to push up demand by spending more on cash transfers to the poor and on goods and services

Even after the pandemic shock is over, the world will still be stuck with the protracted crisis of over-production, which had engulfed it well before

Why has there been a tendency toward persistent ‘excess supply’ in the foodgrain market when growth rate of foodgrain output has barely exceeded the population growth rate?

If wealth inequality is to be prevented from becoming worse than the horrendous level it has already attained, then the only way this can be done is by larger government spending that is financed by a tax on the rich, either a profit tax or a wealth tax