WHILE people are facing acute distress due to demonetisation, the back to back arrest of two TMC MPs has once again brought to surface the massive loot of peoples’ money through chit funds. Sudip Banerjee, TMC leader in Lok Sabha and Tapas Paul, film star turned MP were arrested by the CBI in the Rose Valley scam. Every day more and more facts are surfacing, proving that the ultimate beneficiary of the chit fund plunder was the ruling party of West Bengal.

CPI(M) Delhi state committee condemns the coercive measures used by the DDA, Delhi Police and other paramilitary forces to force residents of Kathputli Colony in central Delhi to move to a transit camp in Anand Parvat. Heavy police presence is there in this colony since the last ten days and people are being forced to sign on the ‘parchis’ stating their agreement to shift to the transit camp. That residents are being forced to abandon their homes in the middle of winter has made matters worse.

The coordination committee of minority cultural groups organized a seminar on ‘Uniform Civil Code and the Left’ in Kannur on December 20. Addressing the seminar CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Prakash Karat said the BJP is using the issue of Uniform Civil Code as a weapon to obliterate the identity of Muslims in the country and that the fundamentalist position insisting that instant and arbitrary triple ‘talaq’ is ordained by Islam will help communalists create a communal divide in the country.

THE entire state of Kerala is voicing its vehement opposition to the curbs imposed on the cooperative sector following the withdrawal of the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.

District and rural cooperative banks are prohibited from exchanging old notes of these values or accept deposits in these denominations even from their own customers. This has led to an unprecedented economic crisis in states like Kerala which have a strong cooperative movement.

WHILE the nation grapples with worthless 500 and 1000 rupee notes which have lost their premier value as legal tenders from the midnight of November 8-9, the prime minister’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal has proved to be a smart Alec. In the afternoon of November 8th the Kolkata’s Central Avenue branch of the Indian Bank (Branch code: 00C004; IFS Code; ID IB 000C004; MICR Code: 700019008) received a deposit of Rs 60 lakhs, all in the denomination of 1,000 rupee notes. The money was deposited in one hundred neat bundles.