[Marxistindia] Polit Bureau Communique

marxistindia
news from the cpi(m)
June 29, 2008

Press Communiqué

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) met in New Delhi On June 29, 2008. It has issued the following statement:

On Nuclear Deal

The Polit Bureau heard a report on the current impasse arising out of the Prime Minister and the Congress leadership's insistence on going ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The Polit Bureau wishes to point out that going to the Board of Governors of the IAEA for approval of the Safeguards Agreement will be a flagrant violation of the understanding arrived at in the November 16, 2007 meeting of the UPA-Left Committee on the nuclear deal. The UPA had pledged not to proceed till the Committee arrives at its findings, which includes the conclusions to be arrived at on the text of the Safeguards Agreement.

The Polit Bureau wishes to point out that the UPA was formed to keep the communal forces at bay. By taking such a step and the political consequences thereafter, that purpose will be undermined. We appeal to the partners of the Congress in the UPA to ensure that no such steps are taken which will help the communal forces.

The Polit Bureau reiterates its firm opposition to the 123 Agreement which does not provide for full civilian nuclear cooperation; does not meet the needs of energy security and which will severely undermine the country's independent foreign policy and strategic autonomy by cementing a strategic alliance with the United States.

In case the government decides to go ahead with such a harmful agreement, which has no majority support in parliament, the CPI(M) will withdraw support to the UPA government in concert with the Left parties.

Inflation and Price Rise

The Polit Bureau expressed grave concern at the galloping inflation rate which has touched 11.42 per cent. The Manmohan Singh government has abjectly failed to tackle inflation. The price rise of essential commodities imposes a crushing burden on the people. The poor are finding it difficult to survive given the rising cost of food stuffs.

It is unfortunate that at a time when the government should be gearing up to take comprehensive steps to tackle inflation and price rise, the Prime Minister and the Congress leadership are more concerned about fulfilling their commitment made to President Bush to operationalise the nuclear deal.

The Polit Bureau notes that wedded to neo-liberal policies, the Congress-led government callously refuses to take the urgent steps necessary to curb price rise and provide relief to the people.

The CPI(M) will, after consultations with the Left parties launch an intensive campaign unitedly to expose the Congress-led government's surrender to national interests on the nuclear deal and its failure to curb price rise.

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[Marxistindia] Remarks made by Com. M.K. Pandhe

marxistindia
news from the cpi(m)
June 25, 2008

Press Statement

Prakash Karat, General Secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist), has issued the following statement:

The remarks made by M. K. Pandhe, member, Polit Bureau of CPI(M), on the nuclear deal issue on June 23, 2008 are not the views of the Party.

eom
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[Marxistindia] Disinformation Campaign on Nuclear Deal

marxistindia
news from the cpi(m)
21 June 2008

Press Release

The Congress leadership and the UPA government are propagating that the Indo-US nuclear deal is absolutely essential for India's energy security. A massive disinformation campaign has been mounted that nuclear energy is a solution not only to the shortage of electricity in the country but also an answer to the oil price rise. This is nothing but a cover to promote the strategic ties with the US. As it is difficult to promote India-US strategic ties directly, therefore the recourse to false claims that nuclear energy will at one stroke reduce not only our oil consumption and but also remove our power shortages.

Let us take the issue of oil first. More than 50% of India's oil consumption is in the transport sector - cars, buses and trucks and the rest in petrochemicals and fertilisers. Only a negligible amount is used in the power plants. Nuclear energy has very little to do with oil - it cannot be used as a substitute for oil; unless the Government experts have found a new way to burn uranium directly in cars and buses! On the other hand, Natural Gas from Iran would insulate India substantively from the oil price shocks. The Government has been dragging its feet over the Iran Gas Pipeline project at the behest of the US and in consideration of the Hyde Act.

On the power shortages, the facts are as follows.

· India's growing shortage of electricity has little to do with a lack of nuclear energy but a lot to do with starving the power sector of public investments over the last two decades. In the last three Five-year plans, capacity additions has been of around 20,000 MW per Plan, less than what we had added in the 7th Plan.

· Even if the Deal is signed today, it will take about 8 years before any electricity is produced from imported reactors under the Deal

· The cost of installing nuclear power plants using imported reactors is three times that of coal-fired plants of the same size

· The cost of electricity from such plants will be more than Rs. 5.00, twice that from coal-fired plants

· The quickest and cheapest way to remove the current electricity shortages is to build coal-fired plants which take half the time required by nuclear plants

· Nuclear plants require imported uranium, which is controlled by a small international cartel. The price of uranium has gone up by five times in the last few years because of this cartel.

· Nuclear energy has an important place in India's energy option and this route needs to be kept open for the future. However, this should be based on our indigenous technology and our indigenous resources to ensure energy security.

· Even with the most optimistic nuclear scenario that the Government has projected, Nuclear energy will at best meet only 8% of our electricity demand and about 4% of our total primary energy demand. While the nuclear option should be kept open for the future, it has little importance for meeting our immediate energy needs.

The Government has also been highlighting a temporary shortage of uranium fuel and painting it as a permanent one. The Government, either deliberately or a failure of planning, did not invest in expanding the existing uranium mines or opening new mines. Worse, they also closed one of the existing mines. The Atomic Energy Commission has made clear that we have enough uranium for 10,000 MW of installed capacity against the current capacity of only about 4,000 MW. It appears that the spectre of uranium shortage has been created only to push a Deal that is not in India's national interest.

The India-US Nuclear Deal is not about India's energy security. Energy security lies in using indigenous energy resources such as coal and ensuring our future energy supplies from Iran and other countries in West and Central Asia. Obviously, augmenting indigenous coal production, investing in oil exploration, securing gas supplies through Iran Gas Pipeline are much more important for India's energy security than buying imported reactors and importing uranium for such nuclear plants. Energy security does not lie in helping a moribund US nuclear industry to sell us billions of dollars of reactors, which nobody is buying in the US.

end

Mythical energy claims are being made in order to promote a bad nuclear deal. Energy is just a cover. The real intent is India-US strategic ties.
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[Marxistindia] Step Up Agitation Against Price Rise

marxistindia
news from the cpi(m)
June 20, 2008

Press Statement

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:

The inflation rate has gone up to 11.05 per cent for the week ending June 7. This is a direct result of the steep increase effected by the government in the prices of petrol, diesel and cooking gas.

This raging double-digit inflation is going to have a disastrous effect on the living standards of people with the rampant increase in prices of all essential commodities. The Manmohan Singh government is squarely responsible for this dismal situation. It cannot escape by blaming global inflation.

The government has refused to take the measures suggested by the Left parties such as strengthening and universalizing the public distribution system and banning forward trading in all essential commodities. Nor is it willing to do away with the iniquitous taxation structure and the import parity pricing of the petroleum products.

The government refuses to tax the windfall profits of private refineries like the Reliance Industries which made a profit of Rs. 10,372 crore in 2007-08. Even in the United States, to whom our rulers look up to, the concept of taxing windfall profits is accepted.

The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) calls upon all its Party units to step up the agitation against price rise and to mobilize the people to compel the government to take measures to curb price rise and provide immediate relief to the people.

end
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[Marxistindia] Left Parties Statement on Nuclear Deal

marxistindia
news from the cpi(m)
June 18, 2008

Press Statement

The Left parties held a meeting on June 18, 2008. They have issued the following statement:

The Left parties have steadfastly opposed the 123 agreement for civilian nuclear cooperation with the United States. The UPA-Left Committee on Indo-US civil nuclear cooperation was constituted to discuss the problems arising out of the provisions of the Hyde Act and its impact on the 123 agreement.

Subsequently, the committee decided that the impact of the provisions of the Hyde Act and the 123 agreement on the IAEA safeguards agreement should also be examined.

Hence at the sixth meeting of the UPA-Left Committee held on November 16, 2007 it was decided that talks with the IAEA secretariat would be held for working out the text of the safeguards agreement. Thereafter, the outcome of the talks will be presented to the committee for its consideration before it finalises its findings. The findings of the committee will have to be taken into account before proceeding further.

In the seventh and eighth sessions of the UPA-Left Committee in March and May 2008, some of the features of the text were discussed. However, the text has not been made available to the committee. As far as the Left parties are concerned, they have not been able to form any opinion on the text of the safeguards agreement. Neither has the committee arrived at its findings.

In such a situation, the Left parties are of the firm opinion that the government should not proceed to seek approval of the text of the India specific safeguards agreement from the Board of Governors of the IAEA.

Sd/

Prakash Karat A.B. Bardhan

General Secretary, CPI(M) General Secertary, CPI

Debabrata Biswas T.J. Chandrachoodan

General Secretary, AIFB General Secretary, RSP
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[Marxistindia] CPI(M) on Fuel Price Hike

marxistindia
news from the cpi(m)
04 June 2008

Press Release

Fuel Price Hike Thoroughly Unjustified

The hike in the prices of petrol, diesel and LPG announced by the Government today is unjustified. If the suggestions put forward by the Left Parties are taken into account, this price hike would be totally unnecessary.

The Government has said that the price hike would lead to additional earnings of Rs. 21123 crore for the Public Sector Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs). This amount can be easily mobilised to provide relief to the OMCs by doing the following:

v Rs. 7500 crore per annum cess collected from ONGC and Oil India Ltd. under the Oil Industry Development (OID) Act, 1974, which is not being used for the development of the petroleum sector, can be used to create a Price Stabilisation Fund, from which the OMCs can be compensated.

v If excise duties on petrol and diesel are cut by Rs. 3/litre instead of Re. 1/litre as has been done presently, a further relief of around Rs. 12000 crore can be provided to the OMCs.

v According to the Statement of Revenue Foregone in the Union Budget 2008, the Government is estimated to have lost Rs. 87992 crore in excise duty exemptions and Rs. 58655 crore in corporate tax exemptions in 2007-08. The Government would not lose any revenue on account of the tax relief given to oil companies if it can phase out 15% of these huge corporate and excise duty exemptions.

v According to the Annual Report of the Reliance Industries Limited, its profit from the refining business has increased from Rs. 5915 crore in 2005-06 to Rs. 10372 crore in 2007-08. Not a single paisa of tax has been paid out of these profits, which have nearly doubled in two years. A windfall profit tax of 20% on such profits from refining as well as oil and gas exploration can help in mobilising at least Rs. 2000 crore.

The astronomical figures for under recoveries of OMCs that are being projected as their losses by the Government are notional figures. They are not actual losses. The Government should realize that in a global context where price of crude oil is reigning at a high level, the only sustainable solution lies in restructuring duties on petro products and having a transparent pricing policy whereby the OMCs as well as the refineries do not retain hefty profit margins. What is at stake today is not the market capitalisation of the oil companies but the livelihood of the working people who are already suffering from back-breaking inflation.

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[Marxistindia] Left Parties Denounced Price Rise of Petroleum Products

marxistindia
news from the cpi(m)
June 4, 2008

Press Statement

The Left parties - Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Revolutionary Socialist Party and All India Forward Bloc - have issued the following statement:

Price Rise of Petroleum Products Denounced:

Call for Powerful Protest Movement

The government has announced a steep increase in prices of petroleum products across the board. The price of petrol per litre is increased by Rs. 5; diesel by Rs. 3; and LPG cylinder by Rs. 50. This onslaught on the people comes at a time when they are suffering from the steep price rise of all essential commodities. In the background of the failure of the government to tackle the rising rate of inflation, this hike in petroleum prices will further aggravate the inflationary situation.

The increase in the price of diesel, in particular, will have a cascading effect on all-round prices as the transportation costs will rise sharply. Rs. 50 increase in the price of LPG cylinder will also be a crushing burden on family budget of ordinary people.

The Left parties had given a set of alternative proposals which have been ignored by the government for the past three years. The only substantial step taken is the doing away of the 5 per cent import duty on crude oil.

It is to be noted that the government has refused to impose a windfall profits tax on the oil and gas extracting companies and the private oil refineries. The spectacle of these companies reaping huge profits while the common people are burdened with huge price increases will not be lost on the people.

The Left parties demand that the UPA government review the decision on the price hikes. It should cut excise duties more and impose windfall taxes on private companies.

The Left parties call for a powerful countrywide protest movement against the steep hike in petrol, diesel and cooking gas prices. From the 5th to the 11th of June, the Left parties will mobilize the people to conduct hartals, strikes, picketing, rail roko, rasta roko and demonstrations to register the people's protest against this unjustified burden.

Sd/- Sd/-

(Prakash Karat) (A. B. Bardhan)

General Secretary, CPI(M) General Secretary, CPI

Sd/- Sd/-

(Debabrata Biswas) (T. J. Chandrachoodan)

General Secretary, AIFB General Secretary, RSP
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