THE Tamil Nadu Vivasayikal Sangam has gathered the signatures of nearly six lakh farmers in the state against the NDA government's anti-people land acquisition bill. The Sangam also held protest rallies across the state during June in which around 50,000 farmers took part and supported the agitation against the bill.

T K Rangarajan, MP and Central Committee member of the CPI(M), who led the rally in Tuticorin, said that the BJP-led government promulgated the land ordinance for the third time and it was condemnable. It would affect the interests of farmers, who were largely dependent on their land for cultivation. Once the land bill is enacted, it will empower the government to take over lands without the consent of farmers.

Food production would be largely affected and vast tracts of cultivable land would be converted to bring in corporates. Hence, farmers in the state were against the implementation of the land bill and demanded that the Centre reconsider its move to implement the bill.

Signature campaigns were launched across India in protest against the ordinance. Around five crore signatures had been collected from farmers across the country and six lakh signatures were collected from farmers in Tamil Nadu. The signatures would be submitted to Collectors at district level and later would be forwarded to the President, Rangarajan said.

After launching the signature campaign on June 1 as part of the nation-wide campaign, office-bearers of the Sangam obtained signatures of farmers by visiting hundreds of villages and conducted mass campaigns in districts. With these signatures, the leaders met Collectors of respective districts at the end of the protest rally on June 30 in the state.

K Varadarajan, vice president of All India Kisan Sabha, led the protest rally in Dharmapuri and P Shanmugam, general secretary of Tamil Nadu Vivasyikal Sangam, led the rally at Villupuram. Various leaders of the Sangam led the protests in districts including Trichy, Madurai, Tirunelveli, Coimbatore, Salem, Dindigul and Erode.

CPI(M) Takes to Streets for 'Health' of Trichy Govt Hospital

HUNDREDS of Party activists took to the streets in Trichy on June 30 highlighting serious shortcomings in providing healthcare to patients at Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital, attached to K A P Viswanatham Government Medical College in the city.

Nearly 500 cadres, including 75 women, courted arrest when they tried to stage a ‘road roko’ in front of the hospital, which attracts patients from Trichy, Perambalur, Ariyalur, Karur and Pudukottai districts.

Addressing the party cadre who staged the protest for more than an hour braving the scorching sun, G Ramakrishnan, TN state secretary and Polit Bureau member, said the hospital, which was catering to the needs of about 30 lakh people in and around Trichy, had been facing acute shortage of doctors, nurses and paramedics. Despite several agitations, the vacancies have not been filled.

As against the requirement of about 350 nurses, the hospital had been functioning with just 140. Vacancies of specialist doctors, including neurologists, neuro-surgeons, cardiologists, psychiatrists and others, were yet to be filled. Many of the highly sophisticated equipment had been kept idle owing to acute shortage of doctors, Ramakrishnan said.

Blaming the state government for the sorry state of affairs, he said many other government hospitals in the state had been facing similar problems and accused the government of not being serious about providing quality healthcare to the poor and needy. S Sridhar, CPI(M) state committee member, and K Annadurai, Trichy Urban district secretary of the Party, also addressed the gathering.

Puducherry: CPI(M) Seeks Legislation to Prevent Private School from Charging Excess Fees

CPI(M) Workers in Pudhucherry staged a sit-in near the Chief Secretariat on June 29 to mark their protest against the Puducherry Government’s continued apathy towards the problems in the education sector and for favouring private institutions. The protesters, led by CPI(M) Central Committee member and Chidambaram MLA K Balakrishnan, along with Puducherry pradesh secretary R Rajangam, took out a rally from Jawaharlal Nehru Street.

The protesters were blocked en route by the police, after which they staged a sit-in protest near the Chief Secretariat condemning the government’s apathy in controlling private educational institutions. K Balakrishnan said the Puducherry Government was unduly favouring private institutions while failing to initiate measures for strengthening the government-run institutions. Several government schools had denied admission to their own students who had studied up to Class 10, he said.

The government should enact a legislation to prevent private schools from charging excess fees from the students. It should also ensure implementation of 25 per cent reservation for students of Puducherry in admission to Pondicherry University.

Balakrishnan also urged the government not to grant ‘No Objection Certificate’ to three private medical colleges to become Deemed Universities. The administration should take steps to ensure that private colleges allocated 50 per cent of seats for the government quota, besides streamlining the fee structure.

Later K Balakrishnan, along with other CPI(M) Puducherry leaders including T Murugan and V Perumal, submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister N Rangasamy at his chamber in the Legislative Assembly. Rangasamy assured them that a committee would be constituted soon to streamline the fee structure in private schools in the Union Territory. (END)