The lead article by Prabhat Patnaik in the current issue of Social Scientist distinguishes between two opposed concepts of commodity production, one espoused by Adam Smith which constitutes the theoretical basis of liberalism, and the other by Karl Marx which…
The term ‘commodity’ is very little understood. It is generally taken to mean a product that is exchanged against another product (as in barter) or against money. Commodity production correspondingly is taken to mean production for the market or, more…
Dead-end of the Tunnel An armed guerilla struggle by a section of peasantry against the Indian state was launched from Naxalbari in West Bengal. It was led by Charu Majumdar who broke away from the CPI(M) because he considered that…
During the anti-Partition agitation, and the subsequent Swadeshi and boycott agitation, public sphere became the arena of conducting politics. Opinion of the people gained heightened importance under the new order. Naturally, new and old media began to be deployed for…
The report of the High Level Committee on Reorienting the Role and Restructuring of Food Corporation of India (HLC henceforth) is the latest redefinition of the approach to food subsidy policy in India. Food subsidy has been one of the…
This note pertains to Prabhat Patnaik’s review of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century, published in The Marxist, vol. 30, no. 2, April–June 2014. It seems to me that any critical assessment of Piketty’s book must, first of all,…
One minor sideshow to the live Modi starrer on Sunday, 21 June 2015, in the capital was the presence of a gesticulating Ramdev on the main stage. He was playing second fiddle to the star attraction, but he had a…
Ajit Singh, Emeritus Professor of Economics at University of Cambridge and a long-time associate of Indian academia, breathed his last in Cambridge on 23 June 2015, in his Newnham home in Cambridge. The news was received with immense sadness by…
Praful Bidwai, outstanding political analyst, brilliant journalist, erudite social science researcher and public-spirited activist, died on 23 June 2015 in Amsterdam where he was attending the annual Transnational Institute (TNI) meeting. He was a long-time Fellow of TNI. Bidwai had…
Satadru Sen, Disciplined Natives: Race, Freedom and Confinement in Colonial India, Primus, Delhi, 2011, 359 pages, Rs 995 Samiksha Sehrawat, Colonial Medical Care in North India: Gender, State, and Society, c. 1840–1920, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2013, 292 pages,…