Arun Kumar: Articles, talks & discussions on aspects of the economy

1.      Panel Discussion in Hindi on Job creation. Bahujan Samvad, May 10. It is at: https://youtu.be/YGt-Qky0HBk?si=eg9uavfTAzqHt1jm 2.      Interview in Hindi on economy and volatility in stock market. TV6 May 10. It is at: https://www.youtube.com/live/bAHK-Ewp4A4?si=N3LWTpr9sccubz6J 3.     Article on Direct Tax data points to growing inequality. Businessline May 9. It is at: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/direct-tax-collections-reflect-disparities/article68158293.ece 4.      Indian Economy’s performance in the last 10 years. Mainstream, May 4. It is at: http://mainstreamweekly.net/article14564.html Its Hindi translation appeared in Samayik Varta Magazine,… Read More Arun Kumar: Articles, talks & discussions on aspects of the economy

Corporate Business and the Financing of Political Parties

Corporate business financing of politics in India goes back decades. The court ruling on the electoral bonds scheme is not going to end this business-politics nexus. We can only hope that the nexus can be nudged in the direction of greater transparency so that voters can make more informed choices. JAGDEEP S. CHHOKARThe recent judgement of the… Read More Corporate Business and the Financing of Political Parties

Top Israeli Arms Maker Unwittingly Reveals Its Largest Foreign Customer: India

Avi Scharf India is the largest foreign customer of Israeli defense giant Israel Aerospace Industries, the company revealed in its 2023 annual report based on a Haaretz analysis of company statements from recent years. According to the annual report, sales to India came in at $953 million last year, about a quarter of the company’s… Read More Top Israeli Arms Maker Unwittingly Reveals Its Largest Foreign Customer: India

Munitions India Ltd Exported Ordnance to Israel as Gaza Was Reduced to Rubble

The Modi government licensed a shipment in January 2024, the very month the ICJ ruled that “at least some of the acts and omissions alleged … to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the [Genocide] Convention.” R. Ramachandran New Delhi: The Adani group’s drone… Read More Munitions India Ltd Exported Ordnance to Israel as Gaza Was Reduced to Rubble

Industrialized Militaries & Climate Emergency / Why Arms Races Never End

First posted October 02, 2019 It may not come as a surprise that the largest industrial military in the history of the world is also the single biggest polluter on the planet. Murtaza Hussain Over a century before we reached the brink of ecological catastrophe, Rabindranath Tagore had a glimpse of where we might be headed.… Read More Industrialized Militaries & Climate Emergency / Why Arms Races Never End

Road to serfdom

Telling the poor to settle for five kilos of ration and allowing cronies to grab five airports make every other form of inequality worse. It will turn India into an insufferably unjust society… We did not see this vulgar level of inequality even during British rule. They reported that 1% of our population corners 22%… Read More Road to serfdom

Chris Hedges on Technocapitalism: Bitcoin, Mars, and Dystopia

We are living through an incipient technological revolution. AI, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, commercial space travel, and other innovations are rapidly transforming everything from the workplace to the financial architecture of the global economy. While many of these technologies hold vast potential to benefit the social good, the multinational corporations and financial oligarchy that drive innovation and… Read More Chris Hedges on Technocapitalism: Bitcoin, Mars, and Dystopia

Art of extracting money from loss-making firms, and more electoral bond stories

http://www.reporters-collective.in Check out Electoral Bonds Tracker page On Thursday, as SBI reluctantly parted with unique codes that link electoral bond donors to its recipients, it laid bare the secret give-and-take relationship between the corporate world and the political parties. The Reporters’ Collective bushwhacked through hundreds of corporate documents to make sense of the donations. Though officially… Read More Art of extracting money from loss-making firms, and more electoral bond stories

India’s richest 1% has highest concentration of wealth in decades, study shows

The wealth concentrated in the richest 1% of India’s population is at its highest in six decades and the percentage share of income exceeds that of countries including Brazil and the United States, research group the World Inequality Lab found. Since India, which won its independence in 1947 from Britain, opened its markets to foreign investment in 1992, its… Read More India’s richest 1% has highest concentration of wealth in decades, study shows

Arun Kumar: Articles and talks on poverty, farmers, the budget and electoral bonds

Dear Friends, I am posting links to select recent articles, discussions and interviews. Discussion in Hindi on the Electoral Bonds Issue. HindiSatya.com on March 16. https://www.youtube.com/live/aXZXvim0OpM?si=RF4rNTKXPJfoAijt Discussion on Electoral Bonds and Why SBI wanted to delay giving the data. TV6 https://www.youtube.com/live/of4mjNS58DE?si=xsmc9On0RBGJqQ6G How Robust is India’s Growth. The Leaflet. March 5 https://theleaflet.in/gdp-data-for-q3-2023-24-the-mystery-of-a-robust-growth/ Nehru’s Contribution to Indian Economic Development. Outlook March 4 https://www.outlookindia.com/national/economic-modernist-to-populist-personalism-how-india-developed-post-independence… Read More Arun Kumar: Articles and talks on poverty, farmers, the budget and electoral bonds