স্বাভিমান:SWABHIMAN

A World Bank report states – “ the number of malnourished people with a record rise of 44 million  in the year 2008, is estimated to be total 967 million. The number of most hungry people is 1.4 billion and that of hungry people is another 3 billion. The hungry people in India, that claims to be largely free from the impact of global economic crisis, is 200 million. The situation of hungry people in the so called developed states of India are worse than Sub-Saharan Africa.” These are the official figures. The real situation is more horrifying than the official figures reveal. These figures are rising rapidly with every passing time. Thousands of working people are losing their jobs regularly. The factory shutters are getting down one after another. The unemployment rate and the number of unemployed are increasing leaps & bounds. The common toiling masses, the people of backward communities and countries, since long, have been facing the brunt of this crisis of the system in this way in their own lives. In the case of recent American Sub-Prime crisis also, the backward Afro-American, Hispanics in the American society have slided down further in socio-economic ladder. Those people, who do not have own roofs over their heads, also availed the sub-prime loan with a desire to have their own home.

Written and published in newspaper/magazine in the last part of  2008

Globalisation or Biswayan or Bhubonayan in local parlance are the words which are very familiar nowadays. According to some commentators there is nothing new in it as globalisation of capital is ingrained in capitalism. But as the present phase is new, there are some new features. Amongst these features, a radical structural change in the finance capital is one of most striking features. The deregulation of capital is the buzz-word in this phase of globalization process beginning from the eighties. The use of new instruments in financial market has created the scope for a handful of financial institutions to extract profit to the range of million-trillion dollars. This trade which is dependent on market sentiment has already gone beyond the control of any kind of existing regulatory mechanism. In the face of the growth of this trade in meteoric speed, global regulatory institution like IMF too is facing difficulties. This capital is not being directed towards productive investment. The players from underdeveloped or developing countries are not noteworthy stake-holder in this trade. The liberalized economy and the policy of taking more foreign debt for servicing outstanding debt will result in havoc in the economy of those countries in case of any dwindle or collapse in the global financial system. Profit and more profit, and for that no long-term productive investment but to make investment for quick instantaneous profit is rule of the day. Enormous growth of this quick profit market has already made the market volatile. The imbalances in the financial market may result in the situation like cyclonic storm to crash the market and formant deeper crisis in the already imbalanced global economy. Prior to analysing this situation in detail, let us see what the new financial instruments are and how they are operated.