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Issues of Gender Equality in the Kerala Streepaksham Campaign

THE CPI(M) Kerala state committee has launched a campaign called “Streepaksham Keralam.” The campaign has been launched in the wake of several deaths of young women victims of domestic violence and dowry demands leading to a foregrounding of issues connected with women’s social status and gender inequality. Pinarayi Vijayan may be the only chief minister in the last ten years to flag the issue and to assure his and his government’s support to women in distress.

Institutional Murder Most Foul: Unite to Fight

A TRAGEDY struck triggering a wave of shock and outrage across the country. Around 2.30 pm on July 5,  when before the Bombay High Court bench of Justices S S Shinde and N J Jamadar took up the bail application of the octogenarian Stan Swamy, senior advocate Mihir Desai, his counsel announced that Dr Dsouza of Holy Family Hospital Mumbai who was treating the jailed Jesuit priest wanted to make a statement. He informed the bench, “It is with a very heavy heart I have to inform you that father Stan Swamy has passed away”.

People-Centric Reforms: Not Profit Centric

We are perpetually asked: Are you pro-reform, or, anti-reform?  No reform is in the abstract.  Every reform has content; a purpose.  These determine whether the Left supports any particular reform or opposes it.  The Central issue here is whether the reforms are in the interests of our people, their livelihoods and strengthening the country’s economic sovereignty.  This has been our approach all through these decades of economic reform in India.  This continues to be our approach.

Constitution and Right to Protest

THE Delhi High Court while granting bail in the UAPA case connected to the north-east Delhi violence, for three detenues, has stated, “it seems, that in its anxiety to suppress dissent, in the mind of the State, the line between the constitutionally guaranteed right to protest and terrorist activity seems to be getting somewhat blurred. If this mindset gains traction, it would be a sad day for democracy.” This applies to numerous cases in which any form of dissent is termed anti-national.

Coercive Centralisation, NOT “Cooperative Federalism”!

THE Economic Times of June 23, 2021 has reported that, in a blog posting “Reforms by conviction and incentives” on a social media site, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has claimed that “an innovative approach to policy making tempered by centre-state partnership during the Covid pandemic helped the states raise an extra Rs 1.06 lakh crore in 2020-21”. He has also claimed that this is an example of reforms by conviction and incentives, with the states agreeing to carry out four reforms being pushed by the union government.

Caste Division in MGNREGS a Recipe for Disaster

THE union rural development ministry has asked states for data on caste basis in the works of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). The ministry stated that the details of workers belonging to Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) sections should be mentioned separately. Since the inception of the scheme in 2006, there was no such circular from the central government to the states. For the first time employment under the scheme is being sought to be divided on caste lines, which reveals the real agenda of the BJP government.

Modi Govt Paralysed as Job Losses Reach Dire Heights

THE number of employed persons in India has plummeted in the past few months by about 2.5 crores and the unemployment rate has zoomed up to about 12 per cent, indicating the immense misery that Indian people are facing. Coming as it does when the brutal second wave of Covid-19 pandemic is just about beginning to abate, and after over a year of suffering the carnage caused by this pandemic and its mishandling, the country’s people have been crushed under unprecedented economic burden.

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