THE 23rd state conference of the CPI(M) Tripura was held on February 25-26, 2022. The conference gave a clarion call: “Undertake all-out efforts, ideological, political and organisational, to be a competent defender of democracy.”The conference was held following a mammoth rally in Vivekananda Ground on the previous day. The conference started with flag hoisting by Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the Party. Floral wreaths were placed at the martyrs' column and condolence resolution was placed in the memory of the 22 martyrs killed by BJP-IPFT goons in the last four years.

IN a chilling midnight operation, firebrand student leader Anish Khan was exterminated by four men dressed in police uniform.  Anish was a well-liked and exceedingly admired student leader of Aliyah University currently in the eye of intense students’ protests. He was also a very prominent face of the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in Kolkata. Anish was also known for being a very harsh and vocal critic of the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamul Congress (TMC) government of Bengal.

A SAMPLE survey on rural non-agricultural workers was conducted by the CITU state committee in Telangana. This has given a valuable experience and necessary information to understand their conditions and to decide future activity among them. Six small villages were selected from six districts – Sangareddy, Medak, Siddipet, Nizamabad, Narayanpet, and Bhadradri Kothagudem. Among them Kashipur, Devulapally, Ramsagar, Ambam and Kathanpally are common villages and Anjubaka is an adivasi tribal village.Two types of questionnaires were prepared.

THE DMK-led Secular Progressive Front(SPF) swept in the ‘local bodies elections’(city and town governments) held on February 19, which was held after a gap of 10 years in the state. The SPF has secured a majority in all the 21 municipal corporations in the state. Likewise, the DMK-led front has secured more than 70 per cent of seats in the municipalities and town panchayats in the state. As reported earlier, in alliance with DMK, the CPI(M) contested 66 seats in municipal corporations of which it won 24.

WHILE a three-judge bench of the Karnataka High Court hears arguments for and against the legality of wearing hijabs – the Islamic headdress prescribed for women – in classrooms across Karnataka, two deeply damaging consequences of the controversy are already being felt. The first is that hundreds of hijab-wearing Muslim girls find themselves debarred from education. The wearing of the hijab was obviously not an issue of contention all these years, and there appears to have been many different levels of accommodation with this practice.