kerala government

Planning from Below—and Above

We’ve all noted with admiration in several weeks past—with envy if you’re a chief minister outside Kerala—how Kerala has flattened its Covid-19 curve. While the state’s renaissance set in motion processes that led to what we have today, the role of the left front in the state’s development cannot be ignored. Here’s a 1996 article by E.M.S. Namboodiripad from Frontline that explains how the Left Democratic Front helped develop Kerala, from The Frontline Years (LeftWord, 2010). Pl[...]

Kerala FM T.M. Thomas Isaac Talks to Vijay Prashad @ LeftWord

Before the elections, Kerala's finance minister T.M. Thomas Isaac, who has also written several books (some of them for LeftWord), sat down for a little chat with our chief editor Vijay Prashad. In this short interview, Isaac briefly explains how they're trying to do things differently in Kerala, keeping in mind that people want dignity as much as they want bread. A rough transcript of their talk has been included below the video.       Vijay Prasad (VP): Hello! Welcome. I am Vijay Pr[...]

Story Time in Kerala

On a warm evening in 1972, when I was five years old and living in a village by the sea—Puthenthope in Thiruvananthapuram—I accompanied my cousin to our village library. The librarian gave me a nice smile and took me to the old wooden shelves where the children's books were stacked. As I quickly glanced through them my eyes rested on an oddly shaped book—Vaalameen Chirikkunnu (The Vaala Fish Laughs). The book was the Malayalam translation of a Soviet folktale, fabulously illustrated and pr[...]

'Our Renaissance leaders taught us that some customs are meant to be broken'

The RSS feed on fear. Fighting them requires depriving them of it. Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister of Kerela, was born in Kannur, ground zero of RSS terror. He has seen the worst that they have to offer. At LeftWord Books, we published a collection of Pinarayi Vijayan's speeches, 'India vs. RSS'. Kerala has been a land of socio-political movements. The secular fabric of the society stands on the history of hard-fought victories at the back of long struggles. This week saw the brutal nature of [...]