The Research Unit for Political Economy (RUPE), located in Bombay, India, brings out a bulletin called "Aspects of India's Economy" published 4 times a year. RUPE is a two-person outfit comprised of Ms. Rajani X. Desai, an economist and a young compatriot. Ms. Desai, who was previously on the editorial board of the well-known "Economic and Political Weekly" (EPW) for many years decided to leave EPW and started RUPE with her own retirement funds since EPW was becoming increasingly commercialized and was accepting advertisements from corporations. I have found "Aspects of India's Economy" to be an excellent journal of political economy which seeks to explain the workings of the economy of a third-world country (India) in a simple language with extensive economic data that can be easily understood by the ordinary lay person. Journals of this type, which present and explain concrete economic and social facts from the left progressive viewpoint, are increasingly rare in today's climate. At present "Aspects" is being published primarily in English with some articles being translated into other Indian languages. The intention is to publish it in the major Indian languages for which support is required. The primary purpose of "Aspects" is to provide a theoretical weapon in the hands of political activists who are fighting the comprador capitalist class implememting IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs in third-world countries like India. As an example, the January-March 1997 issue of "Aspects" contains articles on "Union Budget 1997-98", "Welfare, agriculture slashed", "Road to Mexico", "Why stagnation", "Black money blessed", "Plant patenting alarm", etc. In the spirit of international solidarity and in order to understand the workings of a third-world economy from those who are under the boot of international and comprador finance capital, I urge the comrades and all progressive people of this list to subscribe to this journal. The annual subscription price (4 issues) is only $11 which includes postage. Please send your subscription orders (personal checks) in the name of: Research Unit for Political Economy 18, Peter Marcel Building Plot 941, Prabhadevi (Opposite Prabhadevi Temple) Bombay 400025, INDIA Phone: 91-22-4220492 Below is reproduced an editorial from "Aspects no. 1, July 1990 and then some economic statistics on the effects of "Structural Adjustment" (imperialism) on the people of India during 1991-1994 which RUPE has summarized. S. Chatterjee Why 'Aspects'? [Editorial of "Aspects", no. 1, July 1990] The economy should be the concern of ordinary people. For it is they who work it. And the quality of their lives, their joys and tragedies, are decided by the way the economy functions. Unemployment eats into their very existence; retrenchment with modernisation throws them out of production and livelihood; a retrograde agriculture keeps most of them depressed without the wherewithal for producing surpluses; drought and flood in such rural conditions drive some to the cities where they add to the insecure wretched seeking odd jobs at any wage. This is twentieth century India. For four decades and more our country has been ruled using the rhetoric of "planning" and even "socialism". Still people are being told that their condition will improve with this or that change of policy. Most people's lives, however, have gotten worse. As rulers have ruled, economists have advised and are increasingly giving consent. Economists cannot change the economy; they are a profession as any other. People can and must for their own sake. For economic history is made in political terms. And the sooner people become conscious of this and are in their own democratic forums organised to effect it, the sooner will such change take place. For this they must understand how the economy functions; why it functions in ways opposite to the stated objectives of policy; why their economic condition is what it is; and what premises must change -- how the constitution of society itself must change -- to bring precept and practice into alignment. "Aspects of India's Economy" is aimed to reach ordinary people. It can only reach them indirectly, in the present circumstances of illiteracy and diversity of language, through individuals and associations who, having direct contact with broad sections of people, can widely disseminate its contents. "Aspects" will seek to inform on economic policy, on the mechanics and links of our country's economic life, and on the facts and statistics that are given to us officially and through academia. Most papers reflect on the economy from the angle of business interests, or of ostensibly all classes and interests. This generally is called a balanced view of the economy. Such a balance blurs issues as it fails to put a consistent focus on the basic issues and to relate all other issues as secondary to them. For instance, retrenchment is today good for profits; it is also an aspect of the massive endemic unemployment in the country and the underdevelopment of Indian industry and capital which are the basic issues. We will thus be concerned with restoring a different kind of balance. We will persistently aim to show how un-employment is bad for the economy (not only for the people who are un-employed), how particular interests make the economy less efficient in their pursue of self-interest. Efficiency and inefficiency of economic decision or policy must be judged in terms of whether the particular deployment of materials, means and labour in fact best serves the needs of ordinary people and their development as productive beings; whether the particular deployment is part of such a path of cumulative deployment; whether it conserves resources. There is a also a fundamental fact about the international arena which defines a crucial criterion for efficiency. The world today is divided into individual states with vast inequalities in their wealth, development and living standards -- inequalities which have developed as part of a historical process of colonisation and resource "transfers". We must always judge therefore whether a particular deployment of resources takes us further into inequality and dependence or away from it. So judged, the greater profits of individual enterprises may actually reflect a misallocation of resources from the point of the whole economy and may totally militate against overall economic efficiency. On the other hand, a unit may be highly innovative and efficient in the use of resources but helpless in particular market situations. Yet such units get driven out in the name of competition as the market today is structured in favour of an inefficient deployment and stunted development of our resources of men, materials, and equipment. Therefore "Aspects" will focus on and hammer away at particular themes because they relate to certain basic issues which are ignored by the 'mainstream' media and academia. The more working people and people concerned with the economy contribute to our work, the more effectively can "Aspects of India's Economy" analyse, understand and present the working of the economy. If ordinary people start trusting their own experience of the economy as part of the general truth about it and find use for the connections made in these writings, the venture will have been worthwhile. ***************************************************************** 'STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT' (These statistics relate to India and are from RUPE) Foodgrains price rise: 1990-91 (avge) to Dec. 1994: +70% PDS Central Issue Price Increase: June 1991 to Feb 1994 common rice 86%, wheat 72% Amt of foodgrains distributed under PDS: 1991: 20.8 mn.t (milliontons) 1994: 14.1 mn.t change: -32% Foodgrains availability/capita per day: 1991: 510 gm/day 1994: 474 gm/day Percentage below poverty line: 1990-91: 35.5% 1992-93: 40.7% Increase in fertiliser prices between 6/91 and 9/94: 100% Bank credit to agriculture as a % of net bank lending: as on 23/3/90: 17.4% as on 18/3/94: 13.9% No. of workers retrenched from PSUs (public sector units) through VRS schemes: 1992-94: 75,000 Addition to organised sector employment: 1989-90: 4.5 lakhs 1990-91: 3.8 lakhs 1991-92: 3.2 lakhs 1992-93: 1.6 lakhs (1 lakh = 100,000) Annual addition to India's workforce: about 80 lakhs Share of wages in corporate output: 1990-91: 9.2% 1993-94: 8.5% Share of gross profit in corporate sector sales: 1990-91: 13.3% 1993-94: 15.4% External debt: March 1991: about Rs 150,000 crore ($42.85 billion) Sept. 1994: about Rs 284,000 crore ($81.14 billion) External debt servicing: 1990-91: Rs 14,765 crore ($4.22 billion) 1995-96 (proj.): Rs 40,782 crore ($11.65 billion) External debt servicing per Indian family of five: 1990-91: Rs 490/yr ($14/yr) 1995-96 (proj.): Rs 2195/yr ($62.7/yr) (Note: to convert from Indian rupees to US dollars, I have used an exchange rate of $1 = Rs 35. This may lead to some errors in making estimates in dollar terms for 1990-91 figures when the exchange rate was around Rs 30-32 to a US dollar - SC). Objectives of RUPE "The Research Unit for Political Economy (R.U.P.E.) is constituted under the People's Research Trust, which is a registered public trust The Research Unit for Political Economy is concerned with analysing, at the theoretical and empirical levels, various aspects of the economic life of the country and its institutions. It aims to compile, analyse, and present information and statistics so as to enable people to understand the actual mechanics of their every day life. And, in this, it aims to take assistance and insights of people engaged in every sphere of productive work and society. It feels that much of the research currently carried out with heavy funding is conditioned directly and indirectly by the implicit frame set by the funders. The R.U.P.E. does not accept foreign institutional funding. It runs on limited finances raised from personal contributions. Contributions towards its work, either monetary or in the form of actual work, are welcome."