THE Modi government’s disastrous economic policies have pushed India into a furnace of joblessness. Latest CMIE data shows that the unemployment rate in India was 8.6 per cent in the first week of February 2019. This is the highest level since September 2016, that is, in 127 weeks. In February, a report prepared by the NSSO was leaked by a newspaper which showed that the unemployment rate in 2017-18 had hit a 45-year high of 6.1 per cent.
HISTORY is repeating itself with the United States dictating whom India should buy oil from. The US had forced India to drastically reduce buying oil from Iran after it imposed unilateral sanctions on Iranian oil trade last year. Now, the US is back to the business of coercing India to stop buying oil from Venezuela on whom it has imposed illegal sanctions.
THE minutes of the board meeting of the Reserve Bank of India just prior to the announcement that currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination were being demonetised are now available in the public domain, thanks to an RTI query. And what they reveal is the abysmal state of decision-making on economic policy that prevails under the Modi government.
THE second crash of a Boeing 737 Max8 aircraft on March 17 killing all 158 passengers and crew, this time operated by Ethiopian Airlines en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, six months after an earlier Lion Air crash in Indonesia, has since led to a worldwide grounding of all 737 Max8 aircraft.
THE country has entered into the electoral battle for the 17th general elections. This is not an ordinary election where the ruling party of the day is judged on the basis of its delivery of its promises made at the time of the last general elections alone. The balance sheet of its betrayals is often the main issue of electoral discourse.
ON March 12, Left Front announced the names of candidates for the two Lok Sabha seats of Tripura. Shankar Prasad Datta, sitting MP, member of CPI(M) state committee and general secretary of CITU Tripura state committee, will again contest from Tripura West Constituency, while Jitendra Choudhury, CPI(M) central committee member and chief whip of CPI(M) in Lok Sabha will contest again from the East Tripura (ST) reserved seat.
THE CPI(M) Telangana state committee has condemned the recent lathicharge on turmeric and red jowar farmers of Armoor and Nizamabad. The farmers were headed towards the state capital to protest against lack of minimum support price (MSP) as per the norms. Stating that violence could not solve any problem, CPI(M) demanded support price for red jowar and turmeric in addition to establishing a Turmeric Board soon.
TAMIL NADU, one of the leading developed states in the country is suffering in recent times under the indifferent and vindictive attitude of the central government led by the communal BJP denying the hard-earned rights of the state all along. On its part, the corrupt AIADMK government in the state had no qualms in mortgaging those rights of people just to save their skins. Though numerous struggles were conducted to safeguard the rights of the state, the voices of the people are being muzzled up by these pro-corporate parties.
CPI(M) Polit Bureau has issued the following statement on March 11, 2019
IT is perplexing how the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir is good for the conduct of the Lok Sabha elections and not for the assembly elections which are also due. Currently, Jammu and Kashmir is under central rule as its assembly is dissolved.