Articles by AM

K S Krishnaswamy was closely associated with policymaking in the Reserve Bank of India and the Planning Commission from the 1950s to the early 1980s, retiring as deputy governor of the RBI. Over six decades, he was also a writer, well-wisher and supporter of the Economic Weekly and then the Economic & Political Weekly. He was also chairman of the Sameeksha Trust (1998-2006), publishers of EPW. A tribute by a close friend.

The State leadership of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), in its failure to maintain communion with the masses and the Party cadre, is responsible for the crisis of the Party in West Bengal. Its strategy of compulsory acquisition of even highly arable land to facilitate industrialisation under private auspices was ill-founded, and worse in its implementation. The 14 March 2007 killings in Nandigram shocked the people of the State. How on earth could a Left administration shoot down in cold blood women and children from impoverished peasant families? The resulting widespread public revulsion led to the erosion of the Party's mass base. But all is not lost, for the Party still has a dedicated band of workers who, if given the call, will forthwith form the vanguard of radical activism.

The death of the eminent sculptor, Sankho Chaudhuri, last August, has brought an end in some ways to the saga of the Chaudhuri siblings. Scions of a brahmin landowning family in Bharenga, now in Bangladesh, the Chaudhuris were characterised by a restless, freewheeling, ever inquisitive spirit. Sachin Chaudhuri, the eldest among them became the founding editor of the Economic Weekly, that later became the EPW. As the youngest of his siblings, Sankho Chaudhuri was drawn to the creative arts, never hesitating to experiment with new forms and mediums of expression.

The proposed foreign direct investment offered by the Silam group of Indonesia in West Bengal is for establishing a line of luxury activities in the state, the clientele of which will be tourists and the country's super rich, and the profits from which will flow overseas. The handing over of more than 5,000 acres of land in order to provide employment opportunities for the merely 30,000 hands who will be recruited in the proposed new facilities appears to be most inopportune.