The CPIM clearly has hopes from Pranab Mukherjee as foreign minister — what with having described him as the “member with the most political experience in the Union Cabinet”. In a front page article “Mid-term reappraisal of foreign policy needed” in People’s Democracy, party general secretary Prakash Karat says Mukherjee and his cabinet colleague, Defence Minister A.K. Anthony, are well acquainted with the Congress’s role in formulating a foreign policy based on non-alignment. In their new role, the ministers should “reappraise” the foreign and security policies to give them a “proper direction”, he says. However, the CPIM leader also gives credit to the UPA government for some recent steps it has taken, which he believes, have the potential for realising the foreign policy goals in the common minimum programme. One is the PM’s visit to Brazil for the IBSA summit which, together with the NAM summit, “showed how India can play an important and constructive role in advancing the platform” to defend sovereignty and forge South-South ties. The government earns kudos for its efforts to have a convergence of ideas with Russia and China. But the “trend of accommodating to US interests remains dominant.”

With reservation

CPIM central committee member and former Rajya Sabha MP Nilotpal Basu says when the Supreme Court recently asked for details of the policy formulation on OBC reservation in aided educational institutions, or applied the “creamy layer” criteria for promotion for SCs and STs in government jobs, those actions “undermined the constitutional spirit itself”. He points out that the legislation on OBC reservation in aided institutions of higher learning had been referred to a parliamentary standing committee and the SC’s direction that the standing committee’s report be presented to the court was “a clear constitutional encroachment”. He writes that while the judiciary could examine the constitutional validity of a law once enacted, neither the government nor the courts had any say in the matter before this had been done. On a “creamy layer” for SCs and STs for promotion in government jobs, Basu notes that this was “not a concept” mentioned in the Constitution and here too “it again appears to be an overstep in the policy and statutory space” by the judiciary. Basu says that “…there is a growing degree of convergence of certain judicial pronouncements with neo-liberal agenda” on issues such as workers’ right to strike, labour reforms etc.

Stressing fee

The Left has regularly spoken up against increasing fees for education. In the latest issue of People’s Democracy, writer G Mamta argues against it by referring to a Kingston University study. According to this study students were being forced to join the sex industry to be able to pay their fees. In ‘Let us not allow this to happen in India’, the writer refers to proposals for raising fees: “We are already witnessing a spate of suicides of students who were unable to pay the exorbitant fees collected in various education institutes across the country. If we let the Shylocks have their way, it would be disastrous to our education system.”

Compiled by Ananda Majumdar