The implementation of land reforms makes the West Bengal Panchayat system a much more egalitarian institution from both a class and a caste point of view, which the rest of India has not been able to replicate in general. This progress in West Bengal is noticeable even in the high participation of women in the Panchayat system.

Recent data on employment shows that the share of women working in manufacturing in a subsidiary capacity has been increasing continuously since 1987-88. This shows the increase in "putting out” home-based or other work as part of a subcontracting system for export and domestic manufacturing, which are not included in official employment statistics. These are often on piece rate basis, usually very poorly paid and without any known non-wage benefits.

Among some of the voices which are calling for more attention to the nature of the current US financial crisis and for a more disinterested view of the need for state intervention, an influencial one is that of George Soros. His book "The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crash of 2008 and What it Means", being released in May, challenges the prevailing sanguine view on the intensity and implications of the crisis. This review is based on a reading of the digital edition available from various ebook sellers and his recent speeches.

Inflation is emerging as India's primary economic problem now. The problem is that it looks set to rise very fast with retail prices moving much faster than the rest. The major concern still is that this is occurring in a period when global inflation is on the rise and policies of trade liberalisation and domestic deregulation have reduced the degree to which Indian prices are insulated from international prices.

Globally, evidence has been growing that markets are just not working, precipitating crises that requires bringing the state back in. The high oil prices, financial crisis putting government regulation back in vogue and the crisis in global food markets show that markets cannot deliver without regulation. But there are also many areas where apparently successful outcomes of free market have turned out to be more of a problem that an economic gain, the foreign reserves issue being a case in point.

Interestingly, the very financial liberalisation that created the problems epitomised by the sub-prime crisis was predicated on a critique of the efficacy and correctness of intervention by the state. But recent developments show that bail-outs by the government of institutions that are weakened by wrong financial decisions are now taken for granted, thus legitimising interventionism. Can the "problem" that liberalisation was directed to "solve" now itself become the solution to the problems that liberalisation creates?

A large part of the rural area around Delhi and other big cities has been converted from farmland into more pieces of attractive real estate in a portfolio of land holding. In the process, the attributes of the villages of these formerly completely rural areas are changing fast, not only in terms of ownership and cultivation patterns, but also in terms of the material means of support of the local population and their lifestyles. This also implies significant changes in the nature and options for employment for the local population.

Contrary to the media criticism of NREGPA based on the recent CAG draft report on grounds of leakages, widespread corruption, inability to reach beneficiaries and create useful assets, the CAG Report has actually pointed out that the shortage of administrative and technical staff has prevented the programme from doing what it was supposed to do to the full extent The report also highlights the urgent need to ensure more administrative assistance for the programme at all levels.

The main issues in this year's economic strategy of the government, especially the intentions as signalled in this year's Budget proposals remain the same as that of 2004. These are employment, the agrarian crisis, nutrition and food security, education, health and social security. In each of these areas, the UPA government promised much. However, the delivery has not only been far below the promises, but in some cases even worse than the previous government.

This article argues that the reaction of certain sections of the media and the younger generation to certain statements made in the West Bengal CPI(M) political circles which was read as the CPI(M) having abandoned socialism is misplaced on three counts. Their arguments do not distinguish between socialist and people's democratic revolutions; between working within a system and working not to transcend the system; and between the Party and Party-led governments. All of this point towards the complexities of the Indian revolution and require an in depth understanding of the political situation.

Boosted by media reports and assessments by public and private financial institutions of India's high growth potential, capital inflows have seen a major surge in India resulting for one in huge foreign exchange reserves. But expectations that India is out to share in the spoils of global dominance may be misplaced since these fail to take account of the kind of liabilities that India is accumulating in order to finance its still incipient global expansion. Also, the more the investor and lender confidence results in capital flows in excess of India's current account financing needs, the greater is the possibility that such confidence can erode.

SEBI has recently decided to permit institutional investors to indulge in short selling, or the sale of shares that they do not own, and to restore the Securities Lending and Borrowing Scheme which will allow market players to borrow stocks to either sell or honour delivery commitments. At this moment when the boom driven by past speculation threatens to unravel, this move will simply add to misuses in the stock market and speculative activities. The argument that they increase liquidity in the market and correct stock price over-valuation is also misplaced in the current context.

The extreme hostility of the intellectual community to the Left Front Government on the Nandigram issue indicates that the explanation lies beyond the ordinary. It indicates something more serious, namely the process of destruction of politics that the phenomenon of globalization has unleashed. The attitude of the intellectuals arrayed against the organized Left at present shows complete withdrawal from the realm of political praxis to a realm of messianic moralism.

Though the Finance Minister seems to have recently realized the folly of free and large capital inflows, the realization comes too late and offers too little in terms of solutions. He still seems to have an inadequate understanding of the problems that the capital surge has created and is still creating. Too late, because the Finance Minister looks unwilling to face the consequences of actions aimed at slowing, let alone arresting, capital inflows.

The past few weeks have witnessed an extraordinary frenzy of media attacks on the Left and in particular, on the Left Front government in the state of West Bengal. The recent media coverage has included gross and even malicious distortion of facts apart from being completely one-sided. Simultaneously, false and extremely dangerous analogies have been made comparing this to the Gujarat genocide in 2002 whereas no valid comparison can actually be made. All this goes to show the control of the media by an international alliance that works clearly in the interests of imperialism.

Huge foreign capital inflows have recently pushed up equity valuations to generally unsustainable levels, and created many adverse impacts in the economy and on the corporate sector, and has made it difficult for the RBI to manage money supply and use the monetary lever to pursue other objectives. However, these trends notwithstanding, internal resources and bank finance dominate corporate financing and not equity, which receives all the attention because of the surge in foreign institutional investment and the media's obsession with stock market buoyancy.

The massive surge in net capital inflows has put substantial pressure on the rupee. Faced with an unwanted surge of capital that is not being used for productive investment but is associated with a rising exchange rate, the need to put some limits and constraints on the capital inflows, in the form of direct marketing activity in lieu of a capital gains tax, cannot be denied.

The recent disquisitions of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which in effect blame the electorate for giving a "fractured mandate", or in other words denying a clear majority to the Congress Party, transgress the natural boundaries of a party's confidence in its party programme or the degree of impatience with the electorate on the part of a political party when it does not get the electorate's support..

The PM periodically expresses his resentment over not being able to go through with some of his most favoured initiatives. Two areas in which this resentment is particularly clear are economic policy and India's international relations, especially its relations with the United States. It seems he has begun to consider much that independent India can be proud of and is enshrined in her Constitution as a problem, an obstacle in the way of progress as he sees it.

The current events in Nandigram in West Bengal show how the local conflict, which continues to lead to tragic loss of life, is still being portrayed as a struggle against land acquisition, when that particular victory was won several months ago and now the events portray nothing but political manipulation.

The disconnect between India's booming financial sector and its real economy has only worsened in the recent times. It is the real economy we need to look at to assess the real performance of the economy. In the context of the current industrial boom, it becomes important to acknowledge the possibility of a downturn and find stable sources of growth.

India's GDP growth has experienced a sudden boost in the middle of 2003. One specific component of the services sector, and interestingly, manufacturing growth seems to have contributed significantly to this transition in growth pattern. But the fact that the domestic market, which played a major role in this scenario, was driven in the final analysis by a financial boom that eased credit availability, reduced interest rates and encouraged debt-financed consumption and investment, makes the growth process fragile and a cause for concern for future policymaking.

The rains which inundated Kolkata in the last week of September brought great inconvenience, distress and even acute misfortune to many residents. A major lacunae in urban planning across India in the form of a relative neglect of basic issues like sewage and sanitation, causes such crises to create a wide ranging impact including the disruption of power supply and lack of clean drinking water, and the spread of water-borne diseases.

The Madras High Court's recent rejection of Novartis' attempt to patent the leukaemia treatment drug, sold as Glivec in India, comes as an unexpected and much welcome break and a precedent in the fight for cheaper lifesaving drugs. The crucial question of whether this drug is actually a new invention or simply a minor modification of an older, off-patent drug, was one which is often used by multinational pharmaceutical companies as a method of prolonging monopoly control over products that would otherwise move off the patent list.

The development project is nowhere near completion in India and a major reason is that a basic feature of the process of economic development thus far has been exclusion in various forms. Exploring the reasons why and how requires looking into the relationship between the state and economic development and the class character of the state which has undergone major changes over this period and assumed much more complex and multidimensional forms.

The euphoria shown by the BCCI and several states, expressed in terms of startling cash rewards for the players after India won the 20Twenty world Cup, reiterates the point that sport is not really sport any more, it is primarily spectator entertainment, and therefore media, and therefore big business. This also channels away funds from so called cash strapped states which cannot finance development infrastructure including sports infrastructure, and results in inequities not only on a gender basis but also between sports.

The New Pension Scheme (NPS) is radically different from the existing scheme that ensures a defined benefit from the employee without asking for a collateral contribution. Therefore social security in the form of defined benefit is a right which is being denied by the very concept of NPS. Secondly, the article argues that there are problems with the expected return of an equity-linked financial instrument which the NPS attempts to be as there is no guarantee that the returns from equities would always be better than the guaranteed returns.

Institutions reeling under the knock-on effects of the developments in the US, especially its subprime housing market with rising defaults and foreclosures, are selling out in Asian markets to find the money to rebalance their capital structures or meet their commitments. The crisis in the US is therefore having wide impact on other economies in spite of good fundamentals. However, addressing it will be difficult as it needs major intervention not only from the US Fed but the President and the Congress.

In spite of the growing importance of the financial sector, the RBI is often short on new initiatives and errs on the side of stability rather than change. Given the excessive inflow of credit into the system, the RBI has merely signaled that credit must be restrained basically in order to curb inflation, but has done very little in pursuit of that objective. However, it is important to note that the RBI's ability to curb money supply is also getting severely restricted in the current financial regime characterized by high foreign capital inflows.

The offer by Rupert Murdoch to buy up Dow Jones, which owns the Wall Street Journal shows that the Journal is now haunted by its own promotion of changes in American capitalism that have paved the way for the domination of merger and acquisitions wave. This has led to conversion of media empires into typical corporations that are as much the targets of take-over and seekers of financial gain as any other. This corporate-led, profit-driven dynamics underlying this trend, promoted vigorously by the media itself, has had serious adverse implications for questions of integrity especially of the financial media, which the Wall Street Journal projects itself as promoters of.

Given active encouragement to chase profits in hitherto restricted markets with new instruments, Indian banks are choosing to change their portfolios rather sharply. The trend is towards a diversification of bank credit away from the commodity producing sectors and even trade which is almost completely counterbalanced by loans to individuals and professionals by means of personal loans and professional services, with a large concentration in housing loans. This has increased the extent of risk in the financial system.

This article describes and analyses a set of new characteristics in the nature of financial integration of developing countries with their developed counterparts over the last four years. It argues that this represents a transformation where the risks associated with the current surge in capital flows are far greater than World Bank predictions and that a turn in the investment cycle, with far-reaching implications, is real and imminent.