FOLLOWING the call given by the Apple Farmers’ Federation of India (AFFI) to observe October 21 as ‘National Apple Day’, apple growers in Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir expressed their discontentment with the union and state governments for taking anti-farmer policy steps that have hit the apple economy hard in both the regions, which account for more than 95 per cent of India’s total apple production. 

Thousands of members of Pattikajathi Kshema Samithi (Scheduled Caste Welfare Organisation) affiliated to the Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch marched to the government secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram on October 11, marking the culmination of the month long state-wide jatha which started from Kasaragod on September 15. Slogans of the march were to ensure land and housing for all the Scheduled Castes and to introduce reservation in the private sector.

THE reinvigoration of the Left in Bengal shall enthuse people’s movement across the country, and augment the struggle to oust BJP from the centre which is our primary task, said Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of CPI (M) while addressing a packed auditorium, at Pramod  Dasgupta Bhawan in Kolkata on the occasion of the 102nd anniversary of the formation of the Communist Party of India as an émigré unit in Tashkent in 1920. The meeting was presided over by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Suryakanta Mishra. CPI(M) state secretary Md Salim also addressed the meeting.

ON October 11, Tamil Nadu witnessed a massive human chain programme organised across the state by political parties such as the Secular Progressive Front, comprising CPI(M), CPI, VCK, MDMK, and Congress, as well as other social and mass organiSations, to prevent the RSS from dividing people in the state along religious lines.During September, the RSS in the state had planned to organise a march in over 50 locations in Tamil Nadu on October 2, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, for which it sought police permission.

EVEN while strongly protesting the anti-farmer policies of the national governments and leading struggles from time to time, Kerala Karshaka Sangham had long been facilitating agricultural development in the state in different ways.