Articles by R G Gidadhubli

December 10, 1983 SOVIET UNION New Law on Labour Collectives R G Gidadhubli WITH effect from August 1, 1983, a law has come into force in the USSR 'About labour collectives and merging their role in the management of enterprises, institutions and organisations'. Yuri Andropov promulgated this law the day after his unanimous election to the post of the President of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on June 16, 1983. This law contains 23 articles specifying inter-relations between labour collectives and organs of State power and the principles governing the labour collectives' participation in the management of enterprises, institutions and organisations, G A Aliev, the first deputy of the President of the Council of Ministers of the USSR reported that this was the first law on labour collec ives in the history of the USSR.

January 22, 1983 TNPSTF) were arrested throughout the state when they tried to picket the official headquarters at the state and district levels. They have also been demanding relief from other non-teaching responsibilities like the cattle census, distribution of ration cards, getting persons to undergo sterilisation, etc.

SOVIET CENTRAL ASIA Challenges and New Approaches SNOW-CLAD mountain peaks, thick greenery dominated by tall chinar trees, plenty of rose gardens and the cool weather reminded me of Srinagar city in the Kashmir valley in our country as 1 landed in the valley city of Dushanbe, the Capital of Tadjekistan in late April of this year. Tadjekistan is one of the four Central Asian Republics of the Soviet Union where 83 per cent of the inhabitants belong to the Tadjek and Uzbek nationalities, a good part of the older generation of which still believes in Islam. At present Tadjekistan assumes greater significance than ever before on account of its long border with Afghanistan in the south. Moreover, the Persian language serves as a common base for Tadjekistan, Afghanistan and Iran which enables easy communication among the peoples. The radio station at Dushanbe, the capital of Tadjekistan, regularly broadcasts to the people of Afghanistan in the Afghan language information about the major achievements of the peoples of Soviet Central Asia in the social and economic field. The broadcast also covers news regarding freedom of religion which is being effectively exercised by people in the Soviet Central Asia. However, in the 1920s and 30s, many Tadjeks and Uzbeks were reported to have fled from the Soviet Union and settled down in Afghanistan and they stem to be keeping their identity till today. Among other considerations, the Soviet Union's interest in keeping close and friendly relations with Afghanistan stems from the fact that the Pyanj river running along the mountain border between Afghanistan and Tadjekistan has immense hydro-electric potentialities and as per initial technical estimates of the Council for the Study of Productive Forces under the Academy of Sciences of the Tadjek SSR, 13 hydro power stations could be built with a total electricity generation capacity of over 11 million kw to produce over 98 billion kwh of electricity which could serve as a strong base for the economic development of the Soviet Central Asia in the future. Apart from these factors, Tadjekistan provides an interesting case in understanding the new challenges facing the Soviets as also the complex processes involved in socio-economic development of Soviet Central Asia in the contemporary period.

September 13, 1980 the Polish economy would be in a position to extricate itself from the crisis which is structural.
MANY UNCERTAINTIES How will the workers respond to an inevitable inflation eating up their current wage rise? How will they react to the government's manoeuvres to maintain the status quo in which it enjoys the monopoly of power? What will happen when the free trade union formed so far clashes with the state-con- trolled trade unions? What will the workers do when the rest of East Europe puts pressure on the Polish leadership over the "democratisation" process spilling over to their own countries? How will Soviet Union react if and when the reforms are allowed to be implemented which will certainly give a boost to dissident movements elsewhere and erode the existing monolithic power structure?

The Brezhnev Constitution Compared to the Stalin Constitution of 1936, the new Brezhnev Constitution of the Soviet Union, proclaimed on October 8, 1977, has a wider focus on the country's economic system and hence has greater economic implications. On property rights and profit, in state farming, collective and co-operative farming, and private farming, on decentralisation of decision making process in industry, on wages and profits