The issue of the loss and connected matters were raised in the Lok Sabha during the question hour on 3rd August. Intervening in the matter Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh assured that the salary of the Air India employees will be paid and the government will find out the ways and means for the same.
To another question on the loss of Air India it was replied that the loss for the financial year 2011-12 is expected to be to the tune of Rs. 6,994 crore.
If the government has taken remedial measures at the right time and had not discriminated against Air India to favour the private companies, the present difficult situation would not have come. It is the full responsibility of the government to revive Air India and restore its earlier glorious position.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry has criticised the government policy with regard to the revival plans of the ailing PSUs with specific mention of the revival of Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) units.
THe Committee in its report states that the commitment of the government “to strengthen public enterprises does not sound convincing the way it is treating the revival plan of the Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) group of companies. …the slow pace with which the government tries to consider the revival plans is indicative of its mindset in making our public sector undertakings viable from the point of view of business proposition”.
This mindset of the government is not only in connection with the revival of HMT but also of the entire PSUs. We have not forgotten the infamous sentence of the NDA government that “Business is not the business of the government”. The UPA II government is agressively implementing this policy of the NDA government.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Gas is stated to have recommended that those who are having an income of more than six lakhs in a year need not be given cooking gas with subsidy.
The present price for cooking gas (LPG) par cylinder is Rs.395.00 in Delhi. The subsidy is stated to be Rs.247 and as such the cost of the gas cylinder comes to Rs. 646. The Standing committee wants that those who are having earning more than 6 lakhs a year need not be given this subsidy.
At the same time there is another proposal by the government that nobody will be given more than 4 cylinders on subsidy.
Both the recommendations / proposals have not been finally decided. But it is clear that the government is on the way to curtail the present subsidy on the cooking gas.

Just like the price of the essential commodities, the price of gold is also rocketing with out any control. As per reports the price of one sovereign has reached the astronomous amount of Rs. 17,960 more than Rs. 560/- of yesterday’s price. For a gram the price at present is Rs. 2215/- The rich are happy and they are purchasing it as a very good investment.
What about the common people. Gold is gradually getting out of his reach. In India, where gold ornaments are unavoidable to the bride at the time of marriage and other important functions, what the poor people can do now to fulfil the requirements. He has to take more and more loans and perish.
The Government is simply looking away. Of course, it is not worried about the crores of poor people but is more concerned with the rich, how to make more profit.

Hectic preparations are going on to make the Dharna by Casual-Contract workers at BSNL Corporate Office on 26th August a great success.
The massive dharna is called by the BSNL Casual and Contract Workers Federation as decided in its Central Executive Commitee meeting. The main demands of the dharna are Regularisation of left-out TSMs and Casual labour, Payment of minimum wage to contract workers, implementation of social security measures like EPF and ESI, No retrenchment etc. Hundreds of workers are expected to participate in the dharna from all parts of the country.
This is one section of workers who are denied all their legitimate rights. It is only with the help of the regular workers that their issues could be settled. Hence all the regular workers should extend all help and support to these downtrodden section of workers.

The 27 storey skysraper constructed by Mukesh Ambani to house his family has come in to the lime-light once again, this time for the alleged grabbing of land of the Wakf Board.
It is reported that the land was purchased from the Wakf Board for Rs. 21.5 crore by Ambani while the market price was much higher. The second point is that there is no provision to sell the Wakf Board land.
A vigilance case is going on in this connection. There is a demand for the CBI enquiry, but the Maharashtra Government has opposed it.
Even the Government kneels before the super rich and powerful people.

After meeting the Indian big business and corporates and assuring them that the ‘reforms’ will be aggressively taken forward, the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is now pressurising the Congress MPs in the Standing Committees to speed up the bills for returning to the Parliament for taking speedy decisions.
What are the bills that the Government urgently wants to pass and please the corporates?
They are 1)Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority(PFRDA) Bill
2)Banking Regulations Amendment Bill
3) Insurance Laws (Amendment) Bill etc.
The PFRDA Bill is intended to appoint a Regulatory Authority for Pension Fund, utilise the pension fund corpus for the market, gradually change the pension rules to the detriment of the workers. etc. The government has already changed the defined pension for government employees to contributory pension scheme for those retired after 01-01-2004. Moves are afloat to change the pension scheme for those who are recruited before 01-01-2004 also. The pension security of the government employees will be in jeopardy if the bill is made in to an Act.
The Banking Regulations (Amendment) Bill is intended to de-regularise the banking rules to the benefit of the rich and corporates. The Insurance Laws(Amendment) Bill is intended to ‘liberalise’ the sector and allow unlimited FDI as also favour the private banks.
All these Bills could not be moved and passed in the Parliament during the period of the UPA I government due to the stiff opposition of the Left Parties without whose support the government could not continue. Now that the UPA II government has got majority without the support Left Parties, it wants to steam-roller these bills at the earliest. That is why the Finance Minister is on an aggressive mood.
The workers and their unions have opposed all these bills and have gone on agitation also. But at this stage, the struggle should be further strengthened to compel the government to drop the bills.

One comrade from Chennai reported today that some bad pictures are appearing in the home page of my blog-site. I checked myself in my laptop, but there was nothing. Another comrade also reported from Chennai the same thing. After some time both the comrades contacted and intimated that it is normal now. Except from Chennai, nobody reported any thing unusual.
It seems that either some technical fault might have come or some mischief makers are on the job. My request to them is not to hack the website and confuse the visitors.

The First Congress of the Indian National Congress was held at Bombay on 3rd August 1885. Although it was only a moderate organisation seeking some concessions from the British Government at that time, gradually it grew in to a mighty movement of the people for achieving Independence from the British rulers. And we got Independence on 15th August 1947.
After Independence, the Congress changed. Its priorities have changed. Instead of caring for the ‘daridra narayanas’, it is now caring for the MNCs and big business. It is submerged in huge corruption cases.
Will the Indian National Congress be able to have an introspection of what has happened to it? How is it that the high traditions and sacrifices upheld by the leaders of the Independence struggle have been discarded and has fallen to the corruptions and moral depredations?

Each day more and more problems are coming in to the way of the Prime Minister. After former Minister A.Raja has stated that the PM and the former Finance Minister Chidambaram were in the loop on all decisions regarding allotment of 2G, it has been revealed now that PMO was responsible for appointment of Kalmadi as Chief of Common Wealth Games Organisation instead of a Government Officer as is the system. It is also reported that Sunil Dutt, then Sorts Minister, has opposed the proposal to appoint Kalmadi, but it was over-ruled by the PMO.
It seems that the Prime Minister has been involving in all these decisions making or atleast is fully aware of the same. Is it this ugly situation that the Government is strongly opposing the inclusion of Prime Minister in the Lok Pal Bill?