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Coal Workers Strike

IN an unprecedented display of workers unity and spread of movement, as the biggest industry wise action during Covid-19 lockdown, about 1.5 lakh coal workers, irrespective of their trade unions affiliation, were in the field actively participating in the all India protest day on June 10 in all 535 collieries in eight coal-bearing states and offices of all the subsidiaries of public sector Coal India Limited (CIL) and centre-state joint sector Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) in Telangana.

Women and the Covid Lockdown: Some Aspects - I

INDIVIDUAL stories of suffering and of heroism often reflect a wider social reality. There have been many such in this period of lockdown.Jyoti Kumari, a 15 year old dalit girl cycled 1200 km from Gurgaon to Darbhanga with her ailing father riding pillion to take him home. In an interview she said that her mother had mortgaged whatever little jewellery she had to buy them the cycle as there was no other way they could get home.

Astronomical Increase in NPAs in the Current Financial Year

THE Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) is a burning issue of the banking Industry. The central government has been claiming that IBC would be an effective law to recover the NPA of the large borrowers.  But the present experience seems to prove otherwise and due to that, the additional NPA in the current financial year is feared to increase astronomically. The issue of bad loan has been in existence from the time the financial institutions started lending.

CPI(M) Virudhunagar District Committee Survey: A Good Initiative

THE utter failure of the central government to provide meaningful relief to the tens of crores of our people who have lost their jobs and livelihoods following the lockdown imposed by it in the wake of the Covid19 pandemic is by now well documented. The CPI(M) and other Left parties  had put forward concrete proposals for providing immediate relief to the people as well as for reviving the economy and putting the country on a path of self- reliant development.

Migrant workers stuck in a Quagmire

THE Supreme Court has finally passed the desired judgement, though too late, on the travel of migrant workers back to their homes. The SC has ordered that the centre and the state governments must ensure that within 15 days the migrant workers reach their destination. So far so good.The period since the lockdown began, there have been gory stories of migrant workers; their tales of unprecedented agony, trauma and deaths of many while travelling back to their home states and villages; this in itself speaks volumes of the government’s failure.

Assam Gas Blowout & Fire: Harbinger of Ecological Disaster in NE India

PSU Oil India Limited’s (OIL) natural gas Well No.5 in its Baghjan Oil Fields in Assam’s Tinsukhia district in Eastern Assam, less than a kilometre from the ecologically rich and fragile Dibru-Saikhova National Park and Biosphere Reserve with several other ecological hotspots in close proximity, suffered a blowout ie, an uncontrolled release of natural gas, on May 27, 2020, throwing up huge quantities of gas at high pressure into the air.

The Myth of ‘Gujarat Model’ and its Implosion - II

IT is estimated that more than 6000 NRIs had come to attend the ‘Namaste Trump’ event. Nobody has gauged. Only on March 5, the screening at the airport started.  The large number of private health facilities was refusing to cooperate with the government. While the state health secretary informed the media that there is no epidemic and the Epidemic Act has only been invoked for legally empowering the administration, this was not invoked to address this problem. The testing was low; the frontline health workers were denied PPE and other necessary gear to insulate them from infection.

MNREGA Allocation Fails to Address the Crisis

FINANCE minister has announced an allocation of Rs 40,000 crore for MNREGA. The FM had claimed in her press conference on May 17 that additional funds would be provided for MNREGA and 40-50 per cent more workers will be enrolled under the scheme compared to May 2019. However, the total budget available, including the Rs 40,000 crore for the MNREGA does not concur with her claims.The FM focused only to highlight Rs 40,000 crore and deliberately did not explain the real necessity of the budget according to the demand of work under MNREGA. It is a simple escape mechanism.

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