THE COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant lockdown virtually brought life to a standstill but, sadly, there has been no halt in caste-based discrimination and atrocities in Tamil Nadu. Attacks against members of the Scheduled Caste (SC) and the Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities are, in fact, increasing day by day.

AS Indian Customs officials widened the net of inquiry a woman named Soumya confessed that her husband Sandip who is currently absconding was connected with the gold smuggling mafia. Soumya, who was taken into custody from Kochi said that Sandip smuggled gold from Dubai and he keeps close contact with Sarith and Swapna Suresh former UAE consulate employees and that both of them are  involved in the case.Meanwhile, mainstream media tried a futile attempt to name Sandip Nair as a CPI(M) activist.

ON June 24, the CPI(M) and AIKS held their 29th Victory Day public meeting at Pendhari village in the Tansa Lake area of Shahapur tehsil in Thane district. Over 2,000 adivasi peasants, including a large number of women and youth, attended with great enthusiasm.28 years ago on June 24, 1992, the police aided by the forest officials had resorted to indiscriminate firing in this area to drive out hundreds of adivasi peasant families who had been cultivating forest land there.

SATHANKULAM is a small town in Thoothukudi district of Tamil Nadu. Its Tamil name can be translated into English as ‘a pond where the devil resides’. The recent killings of a father-son duo in police custody tragically demonstrates that the epithet is not off the mark.    On June 19th evening, Jayaraj (59), a mobile shop owner, was picked up by the Sathankulam police for interrogation. It was alleged that on the previous evening when a police patrol questioned him as to why he had kept his mobile shop open during the curfew hours imposed to combat the coronavirus, there was an altercation.

AS per the CPI(M) Polit Bureau call for June 16, the Party in Maharashtra mobilised over 13,200 people at 203 centres in 60 tehsils of 21 districts on the four major demands directed against the Modi-led BJP central government.