The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:
The Finance Ministry’s White Paper on Black Money presented in parliament reflects a trite exercise devoid of any political will. Neither has any credible estimate of black money stashed abroad been provided by the white paper nor any concrete measures suggested to retrieve the illicit funds.
The paper states that the total amount held in the Indian deposits of Swiss Banks fell from Rs. 23373 crore in 2006 to Rs. 9295 in 2010. The government seems to have no clue as to where this amount has gone. There is no assessment of Indian deposits in other offshore financial centres. The paper suggests that much of illicit financial outflows are round-tripped into India through FDI via the Mauritius route or via FII investments through Participatory Notes. Yet there is no specific recommendation to ban Participatory Notes or to scrap the DTAA with Mauritius.
The paper cites the Global Financial Integrity study which estimated the current value of illicit financial flows from India between 1948 and 2008 to be around $462 billion (Rs. 25 lakh crore approximately). The fact that these are not gross overestimates can be seen from the information provided by the white paper: over the last two financial years (2010-2012) alone the Directorate of Transfer Pricing has detected mispricing (such as over-invoicing and under-invoicing of imports and exports) to the tune of a whopping Rs. 67768 crore in 1343 cases. Rs. 48951 crore has also been collected by the Directorate of International Taxation in just two years, between 2010 and 2012. It is clear that these amounts detected or collected over the past two years still comprise the tip of the iceberg.
The white paper reveals that the amounts of undisclosed income of Indians, who figure in the lists of secret bank account holders received from the German and French governments respectively, are Rs. 40 crore and Rs. 565 crore only. These are minor parties. The Indian individuals and entities, who are holding bulk of the illicit wealth in offshore accounts, are yet to be identified. The white paper disappointingly reiterates the myriad technical difficulties involved in retrieving these huge amounts stashed abroad.
The lack of progress in this direction raises doubts over the sincerity of the UPA government on this crucial issue. The Polit Bureau of the CPI (M) demands that a serious effort be made to quantify illicit funds stashed abroad by Indians and identify the culprits. Undisclosed assets of Indians located abroad should be confiscated by the government as per the provisions of the Income Tax Act.

Two incidents yesterday in the Parliament show that the government is not at all serious on its commitments and assurances. Earlier, it was stated vehemently that the Lok Pal Bill will be passed in this session. Yesterday it has been sent to the Parliamentary Standing Committee by the Government. It means that the same will not be passed in this session.

Secondly, the assurance on issuing a White Paper on Black Money has been technically fulfilled, but there is nothing in the same which can catch the culprits. Not even the names of the offenders have been revealed, although it is with the government.

Dr. Manmohan Singh became the Prime Minister of India on 22nd May 2004. After the next general elections he has been re-elected  and is continuing as Prime minister till now. 8 years is not a very small period. But what achievements are there to his credit? An assessment need to be made.

But after the eight years, at present, all, even those who support his government, is of the opinion that there is no real governance. The government is directly or indirectly involved in a large number of corrupt cases from 2G, CWG, Antrix-Dewas, KG Basin, Adarsh etc. which has completely tarnished its image. The II UPA government is aggressively continuing with its anti-worker policies. Unemployment has grown. PSUs are being disinvested and privatised. There is no limit to the price-rise.

In fact, the government is almost paralysed and there is no governance, to say the least. What tricks are going to be played by the ruling coalition in the next general elections?

Comrade P.V.Chandrasekharan, the Chief Patron of All India BSNL-DOT Pensioners Association (AIBDPA) and the President of its Kerala unit, is an organiser par excellence. The holding of the Kerala Circle Conference of AIBDPA has once again proved the same.

Comrade P.V.Chandrasekharan is a product of the highly political sensitive land of Kannur District from where many leaders like Coms. AKG , EK Nayanar etc. have arisen. Even from his student days Com. PVC was connected with the progressive movement and the Student Federation. Com. AK Padmanabhan, President  CITU and  PVC were classmates.

Within days of joining the P&T Department in 1963 at Telephone Exchange Alapuzha, he was fully engaged with the union activities. After getting transfer to Kannur, as the Branch Secretary of the union, he organised many struggles for settlement of local issues. The Baliapatnam agitation is well-known by the P&T comrades. He was victimised several times and transferred from place  to place for his union activities.

During the 1968 strike, he organised it atKkannur in a very effective way. For the correct approach and ideological struggle in the P&T movementat All India and Circle levels, Com. PVC had a pivotal role. He was elected as the Circle Secretary of the All India Telecom Employees Union Class III for about two decades from 1981 after me. He worked as President of the BSNL Employees Union also.

In organising and strengthening BSNLEU in Kerala, Com.PVC has done the pivotal role. Loved and respected by all, though he do not have any post in BSNLEU, he is its guide and philosopher. A number of young comrades were brought to the leadership by him. After retirement he has taken over the leadership of AIBDPA and CGPA. He is still connected with all the progressive  organisations in thestate.

I had the opportunity to work with him for the last 5 decades   and  always got support and advice from him. I wish  him a long period of service to the people.

I am at Calicut today after attending the AIBDPA CEC and Kerala Circle Conference at Kochi day in the last two days. I got the opportunity to attend the Kelu Ettan death anniversary seminar today, 20 th May.

Com. Kelu Ettan (dada) as he was respectfully called by all, was a leader of the earlier years. His entire life was spent for the uplifting of the poor and needy.He was the District Secretary of the CPI(M) at Kozhikode till his death. He was simple, a comrade who mingled with the common people and loved by all.

The seminar in his memory was organised with the idea of strengthening the party and making it capable to face the present onslaughts and attacks on the party and its workers by the police and the government machinery as also the media.

I could meet many senior comrades who worked with me while I was at Calicut.

Worried over deteriorating global economic situation and its impact on India, the government today announced that it would resort to “unpopular” austerity measures to deal with fiscal problems but made it clear there is no pressing of “panic button”. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Rajya Sabha that the government needed to deal with difficult situation in wake of the rising prices of the crude oil in international market and said efforts would be made to push growth which declined to a disappointing level of 6.9 per cent in 2011-12. Mukherjee, who was replying to a debate on Finance Bill at a time when the BSE sensex dipped below the psychological level of 16,000 mainly on account of global factors, cited this as an example of how the international crisis was impacting India. The House later returned the bill marking completion of the three-stage budgetary exercise for 2012-13 by Parliament. “This is a difficult world, international situation is difficult. Country after country is facing major economic crisis,” he said. Highlighting the fiscal difficulties being faced by the government, Mukherjee said, “somebody has pointed…that I am going to take a little bit of unpopular steps. I am going to issue some austerity measures…” Not revealing the nature of the austerity measures he was planning to take, the Minister said, “Some sort of austerity measures (have to be taken) to convey the signal that we are responding to the situation as required”.

What will be the attack on the people? Let us watch the next move of the government. There is no doubt that in addition to the increase in petrol prices, other attacks are going to come.

The news is shocking! It is reported that about 16.8 lakh children under five die every year in India due to infectious diseases. About 50% of these children could not even live for one month after birth.

This is the information as per the study published in the journal ‘Lancet’. Most of the children have died due to ‘pneumonia’. Birth complications and diarrhoea are the other main killers.

Pneumonia, diarrhoea are usual diseases and there is treatment and remedies for the same. These deaths are mainly due to the inability of the families to treat being poor or the inaccessibility of health care institutions nearby. Despite the GDP growth of the country, the healthcare systems for the poor continues to be deplorable. There are thousands of villages without having any hospitals or health clinic.

The care for the children and the aged are the responsibilities of the state. But in both cases the government has utterly failed. A movement should come up focussing these issues and compelling the government to act.

The Parliament has passed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (amendment) Bill 2012 yesterday providing differently abled children in the age group of 6-14 the right of admission to any school. So far, so good.

But what is the track record of the RTE Act itself? Though the Act for Free and Compulsory Education was passed years back, it has not been implemented in most of the states. More than 1/3 of the population are still illiterate. Nobody can argue that the literacy has not increased after Independence, but is it sufficient for a country which has got freedom from the British more than 60 years back. The fact is that not that importance has been given to the free education in the country.

There should be strong pressure upon the central and state government to ensure the implementation of the Act and the present amendment.

The announcements made by the Finance Minister in Parliament deferring the implementation of the General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR) by one year and diluting many of its provisions is a meek surrender to finance capital, MNCs and the US administration. The US Treasury Secretary had personally lobbied with the Indian Finance Minister to revoke the GAAR, during the latter’s recent US visit in April 2012.   The GAAR are meant to strengthen India’s tax laws to prevent foreign investors from avoiding paying taxes on capital gains in India, using the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAAs) with tax havens like Mauritius. It is noteworthy that over 40% of FDI inflows into India are routed through Mauritius, in order to facilitate crores of rupees of tax savings by foreign companies at the cost of the Indian exchequer. GAAR have been implemented in countries across the world to crack down on such tax avoidance, including in developing countries like South Africa and China in recent times. Dilution of the GAAR in India would lead to the loss of thousands of crores of tax revenues for the Government. Other retrograde announcements made by the Finance Minister yesterday include the cut in capital gains tax on private equity, cut in withholding tax on foreign borrowings and withdrawal of tax on property transactions. These are all meant to favour big financiers and real estate players. The government’s excuses on lack of resources to fund subsidies and social welfare scheme ring hollow in the face of such tax largesse for the big businesses.  The these retrograde announcements made by the Finance Minister are to be opposed.