PRAGOTI

Hard-headed economists across the ideological spectrum are agreed now that the present economic crisis is not a short term one and will not go away anytime soon contrary to the initial assertions of the pundits. Comparisons with the Great Depression have also been common across the spectrum. It is in the identification of the cause that there are several Great Divides.

The economic crisis is taking a huge toll on jobs across India, and what stands out in the government’s response is an utter lack of urgency.

BY all media accounts, the annual gathering of the global business financial and commercial elite at the Swiss resort, Davos – the World Economic Forum – enacted the theatre of the absurd. This glitzy superstructure that was created and sustained on the basis of the speculative boom of the financial bubble was described by one of the columnists as follows: "Just as a neutron bomb destroys life, while leaving structures intact so Davos goes on while the culture that supports it is dead."

The self-styled 'foremost media conglomerate of India', the Hindustan Times group are doing what the Birlas have been notorious for since their earliest avatar as Birla Brothers in the 1910s. They have launched a large-scale retrenchment of media workers in Hindustan and Hindustan times. In this, they have displyed remarkable 'quality' and innovation', their professed hallmark, in creating an atmosphere of terror and uncertainty. Physical threats, humilation and molestation are all part of the time-tested innovative practices that are supposed to counter the economic crisis.