State machinery was widely employed to secure favourable outcomes in India’s recent regional elections against three progressive regional governments who dared to challenge Narendra Modi, asserts VIJAY PRASHAD
“THERE is nothin’ like a dame, nothin’ in the world,” or so they say.
In the British honours system, there is in fact something quite alike – a knight, the male equivalent of the Order of the British Empire’s top award.
So you might hail the damehood for Ann Gloag as a step forward for gender equality. After all, her brother Brian Souter, with whom she founded the transport giant Stagecoach, was controversially knighted in 2011.
Why the uproar back then? Souter is also known for having bankrolled the campaign to defend Section 28, the Tory law which prohibited the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools, from repeal by New Labour.
Sexual harassment on Britain’s railways is rising sharply, according to the British Transport Police, yet too many women still feel reporting is futile. LYNNE WALSH asks why the burden of safety all too often remains on women themselves
It is rather strange that Labour continues to give prestigious roles to inappropriate, controversy-mired businessmen who are also major Tory donors. What could Labour possibly be hoping to get out of it, asks SOLOMON HUGHES
JOE GILL appreciates a lucid demonstration of how capital today is an outgrowth of the colonial economy



