ON July 23, 2019, a massive 25,000-strong rally, public meeting and gherao was held by the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and the Adivasi Adhikar Rashtriya Manch (AARM) at the Sub Divisional Office (SDO) at Kalwan in the Nashik district of Maharashtra. The huge mass marched five kilometers through Kalwan town and encircled the SDO from all sides. It comprised peasants from nearly all tehsils of Nashik district. While most of them were adivasis, there were thousands of non-adivasi farmers as well. This was a significant feature.
MILLIONS of adivasis held hundreds of nation-wide protests against the shoddy implementation of the existing Forest Rights Act (FRA) and demanded that the Forest Rights Act (Amendment) Bill, 2019 be withdrawn immediately, after the introduction of the amendment bill on February 13.
Under the banner of ‘Bhumi Adhikar Andolan’, adivasis submitted memorandums to the prime minister and chief ministers of various states and said that the amendment bill will throw millions of adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers out of their lands and destroy their traditional farm lands.
ONE of the immanent tendencies of capital is to commoditise every sphere of life; and under neoliberal capitalism where the immanent tendencies of capital are given full play, we find the sway of commoditisation reaching into new areas. The commoditisation of education which has proceeded apace of late is one instance of this; and now we find commoditisation invading the world of politics as never before.
THE Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill is, by all counts, a dangerous piece of legislation. The UAPA Amendment Bill has been passed by the Lok Sabha and is now being considered in the Rajya Sabha.
CPI(M) sent its observations on the Draft National Education Policy (DNEP) 2019, to Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, minister for human resource development, on July 20.
THE massacre of 10‘Gond’ tribals in Umbha village in Sonbhadra district of UP is not a spontaneous incident. It reveals the deeply drenched feudal fabric of our system, where the State has helped the influential upper caste against the poor tribals. The CPI(M) team that visited the site of the massacre found this telling tale of the incident.
In Lok Sabha, P R Natarajan took part in the discussion on Union Budget 2019-20 and Demand for Grants, Ministry of Railways. He said Coimbatore to Pollachi rail gauge conversion work was done by the railways more than eight years ago. Even after completion of the work, the southern railway is not operating trains on the route. He requested the government to take steps for immediate restoration of train services, which is a long-pending demand of the people of Coimbatore and Pollachi.
CPI(M) Polit Bureau has issued the following statement on July 18
THE union government and the Assam state government have petitioned the Supreme Court for a sample re-verification of the names included in the draft National Register of Citizens in Assam which was published on July 30, 2018. For this, they want the court to extend the deadline for the final publication of the NRC list from July 31 to a future date.