Even while the buzz is that the Indian economy is on the road to recovery, Agence France Presse (AFP) reports that many middle class Indian families are selling gold to stay afloat. Mumbai jewellers told AFP that a majority were women selling off their personal jewellery – gold bangles, rings, necklaces and earrings. One of them said,… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Will economic stress and hunger lead to political change?
Normal life was hit as farmers blocked highways and squatted on railway tracks at many places on the occasion of the Bharat Bandh called on Monday against the three contentious farm laws. The bandh began at 6 am and ended at 4 pm on Monday. BKU leader Rakesh Tikait said, “Our Bharat Bandh was successful. We had… Read More Bharat Bandh Today Live Updates: Highways, rail tracks blocked; strike successful, says Rakesh Tikait / Bharat Bhushan: Time for farmers' movement to launch a political party
The truth is that Indians have switched to palm oil not because of some great choice but merely because it has come cheap. For most people cooking their food in palm oil or some mixture thereof, the content makes little difference. It is just another vegetable oil to them. The very versatility of the oil… Read More Omair Ahmad: What would the proposed large-scale cultivation of oil palm mean to India’s ecology and economy?
The human tragedy is that there is no connection between what we know and what we do. Almost everyone is now at least vaguely aware that we face the greatest catastrophe our species has ever confronted. Yet scarcely anyone alters their behaviour in response: above all, their driving, flying and consumption of meat and dairy.… Read More George Monbiot: Dead Line – Future corporate profits are officially more important than life on Earth
Although every proprietor knows his own, … all things, so long as they will last, are used in common amongst them: Thomas Morton regarding the Five Nations in North America Once referring to natural resources and collectively managed land, the notion of the ‘commons’ has expanded across cultural, scientific and digital realms. Can commonality… Read More Thijs Lijster: The commons versus capitalism
In April 2020, Facebook purchased a 10-percent stake in Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio, the telecommunications arm of the Reliance empire. In addition to dominating telecom, Reliance is the largest player in petrochemicals and in retail. When its latest acquisition is complete, the company will control 40 percent – a large plurality – of India’s organised groceries sector. That could… Read More DANIEL BLOCK: How the Facebook-Reliance combine and the farm laws pave the way for digital colonisation
Just 56m or 1% of adults out of 5.3bn globally are millionaires in net wealth terms. And they own 45% of all global personal wealth. The other 99% own the rest and there are nearly 3bn people in the world that have little or no wealth at all (after debts are deducted). Every year I… Read More Michael Roberts: 1% own 45% of the world’s personal wealth while nearly 3bn people have little or none / Fouâd Oveisy: On the Authoritarian Turn of Global Capital
Article on the US proposal for a common minimum tax on corporations and its likely benefits for India in The Hindu on April 27. It is attached here https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/an-idea-on-taxation-that-is-worth-a-try/article34417756.ece Panel discussion on reverse migration of workers during second coronavirus wave in India, organized by IMPRI on April 26. https://youtub.e/xopvAKaivV4 Article on fighting the second wave… Read More Arun Kumar: Articles and discussions on COVID and impact, Global Corporate taxation and Academic Autonomy
Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century is an indispensable book for anyone interested in learning more about the unequal distribution of wealth in the world today. As I read this major 950-page study, which is supplemented by a large amount of statistical data and tables available on Internet), it became obvious that the Occupy Wall Street movement… Read More Concentration of wealth in the hands of the 1% // The evolution of wealth inequalities over the last two centuries
Bill Gates’ achievement, according to the report, is that he’s largest private owner of farmland in the US. A 2018 purchase of 14,500 acres of prime eastern Washington farmland – which is traditional Yakama territory – for $171m helped him get that title. In total, Gates owns approximately 242,000 acres of farmland with assets totaling… Read More Bill Gates is the biggest private owner of farmland in the United States. Why? By Nick Estes
After the truth-shower 