THIRVANNAMALAI, an important town in the north of Tamil Nadu, well known for its grand light festival of Annamalayar, that is Lord Shiva, witnessed a huge rally of tribal people on October 3. The rally was held on the occasion of the seventh state conference of Tamil Nadu Tribal Association, which has made a record in this period, including the winning of justice for the helpless tribal people of Vachathi village. Thousands of tribal people from Kalvarayan Hills, Silver Hills, Podhigai Hills, Green Hills, Kolli Hills, Sitheri Hills and from Dharmapuri, Villupuram, Madurai, Virudhunagar, Theni, Vellore, Dindigul districts took part in the rally, shouting slogans and holding red flags in their hands. Addressing the massive public meeting, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat criticised the state government for not challenging the stay order given by the court on the implementation of Forest Rights Act in Tamil Nadu. “Some vested interests challenged the Act in court and its implementation in the state was stayed since then. Not even a single patta has been given to tribal people under the Act during the last ten years. Neither the DMK government then in power nor the present AIADMK government took any steps to revoke the retrograde stay,” Brinda said. She also added that there were several cases of violation against the rights of tribal people in the state. Every right of tribals has come under attack under the Modi government. “While Prime Minister Narendra Modi talks about the legacy of Dr BR Ambedkar, constitutional provision for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) has been directly questioned by his mentor and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. RSS wants to question, dilute and ultimately eliminate reservation. If any party in Tamil Nadu has any soft corner for the BJP then it is a straight betrayal of the Dravidian social reform movement which has always stood by the affirmative action for the oppressed castes,” Brinda Karat said. She demanded reservation for SC/STs in private sector. Students belonging to tribal communities are not able to get community certificates from officials, because the state government is not ready to order issuing certificates and allocate proper funds for them, she charged. The sub-plan fund for STs also not utilized for the people, instead it is redirected for any other purposes. “In Tamil Nadu, reactionary forces are becoming strong. Honour killings were never there before in the state. We have seen it in Haryana and other states in North India. But now certain political forces are encouraging such acts in the state. Our Party and the Left movement protests against such retrograde moves and we demand a stand-alone Act from the centre on this issue,” she added. On the next day the delegate conference was addressed by Jitendra Chowdhury MP, on behalf of the National Platform for Tribal Rights. The conference elected P Dillibabu MLA, as president, R Saravanan, general secretary and Sadayappan, treasurer. Leaders of the Tribal Association and Tamil Nadu Kisan Sabha, P Shanmugam, S Palanisamy, K Balakrishnan, CPI(M) leaders N Gunasekaran and M Veeraputhran also addressed the conference. All India Conference of BSNL Casual & Contract Workers Inaugurating the third All India Conference of the BSNL Casual and Contract Workers’ Federation (BSNL CCWF), on October 3 at Nagarcoil, Kanyakumari district, CITU national president, AK Padmanabhan said that the Modi government was working for the welfare of the industrialists, business barons on the one hand and on the other it is neglecting the welfare of labourers. Farm lands are acquired from farmers for industrial purposes. Farmers are under stress and as they are not getting remunerative prices for their produce, they are committing suicides in large numbers across the country. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by the BJP at the centre, is continuing with greater speed and intensity the anti-people and anti-labour policies pursued by the former UPA government led by the Congress. When the trade unions were demanding that minimum wages be fixed at Rs 15,000 per month, finance minister Arun Jaitley, has agreed to fix only Rs 7,100, which does not allow the workers to provide for the education and medical expenses for their children, he said. Stating that if the government continued to be adamant on its stand, the trade unions would be forced to go for an indefinite strike, he said. The long pending demands such as regularisation, equal pay for equal work, social security for casual workers are yet to be fulfilled by the centre, Padmanabhan said. VAN Namboodhiri, president, BSNL Casual and Contract Workers’ Federation (BSNL CCWF), presided over the inaugural session. Earlier, the BSNL CCWF members took out a rally from Mathias Junction to the conference venue in Nagercoil.