INDIA, the ‘Republic of Hunger’, has gone from bad to worse in hunger, and the fight to save the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, which provides supplementary nutrition to nearly 10 crore beneficiaries is very important for the country’s future, said Prof. Utsa Patnaik. In a very lucid manner, she explained the plight of the people under the neo-liberal policies to the audience who were mainly the anganwadi union leaders from different states. She said that their work in the anganwadis and their fight in the union is important for the future of the country.

THE BJP government has passed a bill in the Lok Sabha to reduce the combined share-holding of the central government and the sponsor banks in the Regional Rural Banks to 51% on December 22, 2014. This is a great disservice to the rural poor.  Earlier the UPA-2 government led by the Congress Party also made an attempt to bring this legislation.  The bill is expected to be placed in the Rajya Sabha or in combined session of the parliament during the budget session.  This is yet another blow to the rural poor.

RRBS ESTABLISHED

"...THEY (the poor) have often worked not ten but twenty hours a day. Not that all the poor have rigidly worked twenty hours, but that the worth of the labour of twenty hours now, in food and clothing, is equivalent to the worth of ten hours then. And because twenty hours’ labour cannot, from the nature of the human frame, be exacted from those who before performed ten, the aged and the sickly are compelled either to work or starve. They eat less bread, wear worse clothes, are more ignorant, immoral, miserable, and desperate.

THE coal workers’ federation affiliated to CITU has called one-day strike in the coal industry on January 13, demanding withdrawal of the Coal Mines (Special provision) Act which has been brought through the Ordinance route bypassing suggestions of the central trade unions. The CITU-affiliated All India Coal Workers’ Federation (AICWF) has also extended its support to the five-day strike call by four national federations affiliated to INTUC, BMS, AITUC and HMS, commencing January 6.

NARENDRA Modi’s ‘Make in India’ is now turning into ‘Pack from India’.

Yes. After Nokia, now it is Foxconn.

FIH India Private Limited, formerly known as Foxconn India Limited, a global company and subsidiary of Hon Hai Group based in Taiwan, has made it official that it will suspend production on December 24 after finishing off residual inventory in the SEZ at Sriperumbudur near Chennai. Its action comes as a sequel to Nokia's decision to stop production at its Sriperumbudur factory.