Articles by Mohit Sen

NORTH Where Spirits Command BOOTLEGGERS have been known to prosper in states where prohibition is partially or fully enforced, or even where the demand for liquor far outstrips its supply. But,-in Punjab, over the past few months, even as licenees for liquor shops have been, most liberally granted and large breweries have been set up with foreign collaboration, there have been disclosures that moon- shining has been depriving the Punjab government of Rs 75-80 crores annually and that the business of illicit distillation continues to flourish despite the easy availability of 'official' liquor. Since Punjab means 'the land of five rivers', a gaint official boarding near Ludhiana recently announced the state's 'sixth river"

New Trends in Andhra Mohit Sen THERE are now all the signs that Andhra Pradesh is moving towards a new stage of its political evolution. At the heart of this is the recovery of the Communist movement in the state and the development of the real perspective that in a short period it would again tonic to occupy the place that it had won in the state's politics till the middle fifties. It will be recalled that at that time it had become one of the decisive, political forces capable of crucially influencing developments in the state. It lost that position as a result of bitter inner conflict culminating in a split that divided the movement in the state fairly equally. A decade has passed since then and thenare the twin signs of a certain reunification of the Communist movement as well as the drawing in of new sections into it, especially among the youth and the agricultural labourers.

November, 23, 1974 SOUTH What of Andhra?
GOING about this state one is quite likely to get the impression that the days of storm are over and that it has become again a quiet area. And this surface impression is not altogether false. Certainly the state is settling down after all those days when its very existence was in the balance. But certain important changes are taking place, which surface here and there and which require a certain sensitive partisanship to spot.

SOUTH Emerging Rift in Kerala CPI(M) Mohit Sen THE entire politbureau of the CPI(M) has descended on Kerala, In a sense there is no reason to wonder at this .since Kerala is, alter all, the second mass base of that party. And that mass base has not been behaving as the party has wanted it to. The mass base itself remains large and for voting purposes it is formidable. Why, then, has it remained more than a trifle deaf to the repeated calls for action issued to it by the CPI(M) leadership of the state?

SOUTH ANDHRA has been quiet for many months now. The storm of the separatist movement seems like a memory of a distant and faded past. In official quarters it is called a return to normalcy, but this normalcy is itself left undefined.