THE Makineni Basavapunnaiah Vignana Kendram (MBVK) and its sister centres across the state, in a move to bring solace to the needy during the Covid-19 second wave, have opened Covid isolation centres across the state.The second wave of Covid has created havoc throughout the state and it has become difficult to secure hospital beds.

THE determination of the Yogi government of Uttar Pradesh to go ahead with the three-tier panchayat elections in the state has not brought it any political dividends while it has extracted a very heavy toll from its citizens. A total of 58,176-gram panchayats and 826 blocks were up for election along with 3,050 zila panchayat seats. The numbers that became vulnerable to infection in the course of the month-long campaign and the voting process itself runs into crores.

SOME traumatic incidents do completely expose the extent of degradation in the existing times. The untimely and tragic passing away of Mahavir Narwal turned out to be ironically one of those incidents. Narwal passed away on May 9 due to Covid related complications. His demise at a time when his daughter was locked up in a prison cell on totally baseless and malafide charges has shaken all the democratic sections of our society.In the face of this extremely painful tragedy, our judiciary seems to have proved itself to be completely insensitive towards any human values.

IN a new initiative, on the evening of May 8, 2021, the CITU, AIKS and AIAWU held a joint nationwide online public meeting on the burning current issues of the people of our country. The public meeting was widely propagated through posters in Hindi, English, and other national languages. Tens of thousands of working people from around 25 states attended the meeting.The speakers were the general secretaries of the three, class organisations – Tapan Sen, Hannan Mollah, and B Venkat.

The Left parties issued the following statement on May 1, 2021:THE Left parties extend their solidarity with the international working-class on the occasion of May Day. Left Parties join our working class in the struggle to combat the pandemic and safeguard the rights of the working people.India today is in the grip of the worst humanitarian health crisis since independence. Worse, the scourge of the pandemic continues to intensify.