The first Communist split in India occurred in the 1960s. Could Railway Minister Lalu Prasad have engineered the next? The rift between comrades from West Bengal and Kerala was on display during the Parliament session for the rail budget. CPM members from West Bengal staged a walkout in protest. Not against Lalu?s profit motive so abundantly evident in his ?surplus? glee, though. But against the ?neglect? of the state by the railway ministry. In contrast, CPM members from Kerala seemed to chortle with such delight that ol? Marx himself might have turned pink in embarrassment. What could be more exciting than a locomotive factory being set up in the state? But Bengal?s comrades were not amused by this lack of solidarity. Workers of the world now have nothing to lose but their loco motive.
Blow after blow
Finance ministers do not think alike. But former FM Yashwant Sinha of the BJP has been particularly unkind to P Chidambaram of the Congress. In talk after talk, post-Budget, he accused the present FM of actually overseeing a fall in growth. A whaaat? ?When he took over as the finance minister in 1996, the economy was growing at 7.1%. When he left in 1998, the growth rate had come down to 4.8%,? said Sinha, ?Again in 2004, when he took over as FM, the economy was on the upswing with a growth rate of 8.9%. Now growth is already down to 8.7%.? Is PC worrying?
Ties that bind
Guess who made an appearance at the 100th Founder?s Day celebrations at Tata Steel in Jamshedpur this week? Russi Mody. He?d last attended celebrations in honour of founder Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata in 1993. While JJ Irani helped Mody, 90, lay a wreath at the statue of JN, B Muthuraman had a chat with him. Mody had left in a huff in 1993 after a spat. But some ties never loosen.