Articles by Sucha Singh Gill

absorbs the implications and lessons of the socialist collapse in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and the subsequent renewed offensive of imperialism and neocolonialism, it has to pass through a necessary phase of transition and regeneration. And as the primary class organisations of the working class, trade unions can provide vital inputs into this process of renewal and reorganisation. It is also important to grasp how the ongoing economic reforms are generating and strengthening the material conditions for the development of revolutionary trade unionism. With the reforms becoming such a key issue in our social and political life, every worker today has learni to view his immediate problems and struggles almost naturally in the context of the government's policies and the movements of global capital. The rise of the women's movement and also of greater HEALTH and education services have a vital role to play in the social and economic development of society. The health services help to make society physical and mentally sound and increase the capacity of people to work more. Education by improving the skill, talent and thinking capacity enhances the human capabilities to act upon the resources of the country to not only produce greater income but also achieve better management of the society. These two services are recognised at international conferences as of utmost importance in improving the quality of life. Countries have been made to commit a larger level of their income for upgradation of these services. Most recent such commitment has been sought from the participating countries' governments at the Copenhagen conference. Improvement in these two services is the primary responsibility of the government. Universal primary education and health services for all are also recognised as part and parcel of human rights of the citizens. It is in this context that the controversy around establishment of the Punjab Health Systems Corporation need to be viewed. In the wake of the new policy framework adopted in the country, the health department of Punjab has been making efforts to introduce 'commercialisation' in the environmental awareness provides a more comprehensive perspective to understand, expose and resist the operation of capital. And with almost every state government and established political party pursuing the same economic line, the class nature and political context of the economic policies are becoming increasingly clear to more and more workers, as are the limits of parliamentary politics and reactionary and reformist trade unionism." To take full advantage of these material conditions and further build and expand a revolutionary trade unionism among all sections of the working class is the challenge now facing AICCTU and other progressive forces within the trade union movement. Clearly their success or failure will affect not only the daily lives of India's workers, but the whole character of the country's future economic and social transformation.

Process Sucha Singh Gill VIOLENCE in Punjab is continuing uncontrolled. An unofficial estimate shows that by the beginning of 1991 30,000 people were killed. Since violence has increased in scale during 1991 the figure may have crossed 35,000 by the end of 1991. This includes persons killed by militants, militants killed by the state and innocent persons killed by militants and by security forces. The estimates include persons killed in Punjab as well as those killed at other places in November 1984, According to official figures since 1981 till November 1991 the total number of people gunned down by militants was 9,999. These figures do not include the number of police and security men killed, which adds up to 5,009. This figure of more than 14,000 killed does not include persons killed during Operation Blue Star, those killed in the November 1984 violence after assassination of Indira Gandhi, militants killed and militant killings outside Punjab.

Agricultural development in Punjab has reached a stage when it demands a new model of development for overcoming the problems that it has precipitated. Diversification of agriculture and creation of employment are the two major planks of this new model and the Pepsi project was projected as indicating desired new trends. It is against this background that the Pepsi project is examined here.

Political Economy of Agricultural Development in Two Punjabs Sucha Singh Gill Political Regimes, Public Policy and Economic Development

development inputs. This phenomenon has tended in recent years, and particularly in the current financial year, to become more marked. It signifies that incomes and standards of living of the working people and the mass of the poor as well as the growth potential of the economy and the size of the Plan in real terms are eroding at a faster rate than suggested by the inflation rate measured in terms of the movement of the wholesale price index. This trend in prices with all its deleterious effect on economic growth and mass welfare can only be strengthened by the type of resource mobilisation effort that has been mounted by V P Singh in his second budget. Apart from some fiddling with indirect taxes, especially customs duty, reliance has been placed almost entirely on increases in administered prices, including prices of primary wage goods such as foodgrains. As against more than Rs 2,000 crore which arc estimated to be realised by the government from price hikes in the coming year, net additional revenue from customs duties is estimated to be Rs 407 crore, from excise duties only Rs 60 crore and from direct taxes a paltry Rs 21 crore.