Between 1977 and 2011, West Bengal experienced a steady decline in its poverty rate. This was reflected in the increasing share of the Left Front’s popular vote.
In 1983, the Left Front government in West Bengal under Jyoti Basu banned the teaching of English till Class 6, and justified it by citing a recommendation of the Himangshu Bimal Mazumdar Commission.
Basu was the consensus leader of the United Front after Vajpayee’s short-lived 13-day govt, but the CPI(M) did not participate—he called it a 'historic blunder'.
Not much is known about the Marichjhapi massacre that took place under the Jyoti Basu government on a tiny island in the Sundarbans where Hindu refugees had settled.
As general secretary of CPI(M), Sitaram Yechury was expected to steer the party in a fresh direction and help it reinvent itself. But he has proved to be as much a failure as his dogmatic predecessor Prakash Karat.
RUHI TEWARI
Repeated changes in cotton import duty have prioritised textile competitiveness when mills face high input costs. But policy can also put pressure on farmgate prices.
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