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.

RESENTMENT among anganwadi workers and helpers in Uttar Pradesh has been growing in the past year due to excessive work load. Increasing price rise, very low honorarium, lack of basic infrastructure in anganwadi centres, status of the scheme even after 41 years of its inception and cut in funding in the recent budget have added to their woes. Beginning with the all-India general strike on September 2, 2015, the struggle of anganwadi workers and helpers continued over their demands. In this year-long struggle, participation of workers in all protest demonstrations has been overwhelming.

THE 50,000-strong statewide adivasi struggle at Wada in Palghar district on October 3-4, 2016 was a mass struggle to remember and cherish. The earlier one lakh-strong two-day statewide peasant siege under AIKS leadership at Nashik on March 29-30, 2016, on the four burning issues of peasants – loan-waiver, remunerative prices, drought relief and land rights (see report in People’s Democracy/Loklahar, April 4-10, 2016) had brought the chief minister of Maharashtra to the negotiating table and he had then conceded some important demands.