THE Central Government has used its majority in Parliament to scrap the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The new law that replaces it is a law for outright “adhikar chori” (rights theft). It has changed the very nature of MGNREGA. While it is a direct assault on the rights of the rural working poor, it should be seen in the framework of an attack on the Constitution of India.
SEVERAL employment schemes, each limited in scope and constrained by the availability of fiscal resources, had existed in different states of the country earlier; what the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme enacted in 2005 did was to introduce a uniform, nation-wide, essentially centrally-funded, demand-driven scheme: one person per rural household could get up to a hundred days of employment on demand, failing which...
THE Government of India's Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare's aggressive attempt to reform a sector essential to India's food sovereignty is the Draft Seeds Bill 2025, made available on November 12 for public comment until December 11. The Godi Media has framed the draft bill as a necessary modernisation. The seed industry, represented by bodies like the Federation of Seed Industry of India, has lavished praise, calling it a timely step toward...
Extreme inequality in terms of income, wealth, gender and regions has become the hallmark of neoliberalism. Fewer than 60,000 multi-millionaires who are the top 0.001 per cent wealthiest of the world possess three times the wealth of half of humanity. Their share has grown over the years. The top 10 per cent of the world earn more than what the bottom 90 percent of the population earns and the poorest 50 per cent earns only 10 per cent of...
The magnificent victory of the 16-month long mass movement against forcibly setting up of an ethanol factory has found a proud place among some of the few successful agitations that took on the ‘double engine’ corporate-communal government head on. It was August 8, 2024, that people from several villages of Tibbi Tehsil of Hanumangarh district in Rajasthan launched a dharna at Rathi Khera village after urging the...
BANGLADESH is in a state of unrest. It burns with hatred. One horrifying incident after another is being manufactured by violent, ultra-fundamentalist, fanatic extremism. Anti-India rhetoric is escalating at an alarming pace and anti-India slogans are being raised across Bangladesh. In Mymensingh, a young garment worker, Dipu Das was brutally tortured and killed by a mob for allegedly making derogatory remarks against Islam. His body was then hung from a tree and...
The Save Bengal Journey, which began on November 29 from the Char of Raidak (the Dol Mela ground in Tufanganj), witnessed 19 sunrises and traversed 11 districts before concluding at BT Road in Belgharia. Even before independence, Belgharia witnessed the labour movement of 1938 and saw the red flag at the gates of the jute mills. The struggle to save Bengal today is the inheritor of that flowing stream of the...
The Supreme Court’s Centre for Research and Planning has released an important document — the Report on Judicial Conceptions of Caste (2025) — examining how India’s highest court has historically understood caste. While the report is institutionally framed as a self-reflective exercise, a close reading reveals something far more significant: a decades-long ideological struggle...
Amid continued Opposition protests over the passage of the VB-G RAM G Bill to replace the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), both Houses of Parliament were adjourned sine die. The Winter Session of Parliament concluded on Friday after 19 days. Taking part in the debate on the VB-G RAM G Bill in the Rajya Sabha, Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya described the Bill as unconstitutional.
Dr. Kishore Kumar Theckedath, a rare and remarkable combination of a Marxist intellectual, organiser, and leader, passed away in Mumbai on the night of December 20, 2025 at the age of 89. He was a former member of the CPI(M) Maharashtra State Secretariat; a pioneer of the militant movement and organisation of college and university teachers in Mumbai and Maharashtra; a detenu for 15...
Concert for Palestine in KolkataOn November 29, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, the Palestine Solidarity Initiative hosted a "Concert for Palestine" in Kolkata's central business district, Esplanade. The venue, in front of the Oberoi Grand, was draped with strings of Palestinian and Indian chain flags. |
Protests against Government decision to implement Labour CodesProtests in Tripura against attack on rally by BJP goons A large number of people took to the streets in Tripura to vent their anger against the barbaric attack on a procession by BJP-backed goons in Dharmanagar right in front of police on November 26, in which 12 people including former CPI(M) MLA Amitabha Datta and senior party... |
Stop Flawed SIRCPI(M) Polit Bureau has issued the following statement on November 29, 2025THE CPI(M) reiterates its strong opposition to the manner in which the Special Intensive Revision of Electoral Rolls is being carried out across the country. |
Stop the SIR in Andhra Pradesh immediatelyThe round table meeting held at M. B. Vijnana Kendram, Vijayawada, unanimously demanded that the state and central governments stop the programme of Special Intensive Revision of the voters list in Andhra Pradesh. |
The BJP Playbook to Hand Over Power Sector to Private PlayersThe BJP’s anti-farmer face always gets exposed despite its numerous farmer-friendly announcements, advertisements, and claims. This time, the BJP’s mask has been removed by power companies. An order was issued stating that if electricity is supplied to farmers for even one minute longer than 10 hours, the salary of the supplier employee will be deducted.... |
