A UNIQUE exercise in Party education and exchange of ideas among comrades took place in West Bengal on March 19, when study circles were organised in Party branches throughout the state. The agenda of the study circle was Party Programme.  CPI(M) West Bengal state committee has decided to organise such a single day programme with an aim to educate and re-educate all Party members about the main strategic document of the Party. These study circles would serve as supplementary to organised Party classes and help self-education too.

A FORTNIGHT before the results to the Uttar Pradesh and other four state assemblies were declared, the same rightwing offensive was evident in the elections to 10 municipal corporations (MC), 25 zilla parishads (ZP) and 283 panchayat samitis (PS) in Maharashtra. These elections took place last month and the results were declared on February 23.THE OVERALL PICTUREThe BJP won eight of the ten municipal corporations – Nashik, Pune, Pimpri Chinchwad, Ulhasnagar, Solapur, Nagpur, Amravati and Akola with clear majorities. The Shiv Sena retained Thane with a clear majority.

THE budget of 2017-18 is an expression of the commitment of the government of Kerala to take bold and imaginative decisions in the service of the people, despite resource constraints and the inequalities of centre-state financial relations.Every budget has plan and non-plan components. This year, in a budget that envisages plan plus non-plan expenditure of more than Rs 1,19,601 crores, about one-quarter comes from plan expenditure.

A Two day state level convention of Women agricultural workers of Karnataka concluded on March 9, 2017, demanding from the central government a sum of Rs 3000 each to all the poor rural families, every month, as drought relief. The main resolution that was adopted by the convention said that all the states in south India, including Karnataka were under severe drought. The rural poor get no work to earn any income. The public distribution system does not work. In most of the places, the people do not even get water to drink. The cattle are dying of starvation.

KERALA finance minister Thomas Isaac presented the budget for 2017-18 in the Assembly on March 5. The budget was a bold attempt to save the state’s economy and to provide maximum relief to the common people facing a crisis created by the central government’s demonetisation move and neo-liberal economic policies. The budget attracted a wide applause from every section of society. The opposition parties have not raised any objection to the budget provisions.The second budget of the LDF government led by Pinarayi Vijayan draws a road map for comprehensive changes in infrastructure.