ON October 10, 2021, Martyrs' Day and the 25th death anniversary of the legendary leader of the CPI(M) and the Warli Adivasi Revolt, and the only woman president of the AIKS in its history, Comrade Godavari Parulekar, was observed in a large meeting of over 3000 comrades organised by the CPI(M) and AIKS Thane-Palghar district committees at the Comrade Godavari Shamrao Parulekar Bhawan at Talasari in Palghar district.
LAST week saw two major nationwide actions by lakhs of farmers led by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), demanding the dismissal and arrest on murder and conspiracy charges of the BJP’s union minister of state for home Ajay Mishra Teni, who is the mastermind behind the Lakhimpur Kheri massacre that mowed down four farmers and a journalist on October 3.On Dussehra Day, October 15, to symbolise the triumph of good over evil, effigy-burning of top BJP leaders like Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, Narendra Singh Tomar, Manohar Lal Khattar, Ajay Mishra Teni and others took place in thous
ON the day India slipped to the 101st position on the Global Hunger Index (GHI), a peer-reviewed annual report that measures and tracks hunger, Sreelata was at her workplace at 8.30 am as usual.
THE Indian Express, October 13, 2021, tells us that Rajnath Singh, the Indian defence minister, has claimed that “A lot of falsehood was spread against Savarkar. It was repeatedly said that he filed multiple mercy petitions before the British government. The truth is he did not file these petitions for his release. Generally a prisoner has right to file a mercy petition. Mahatma Gandhi had asked that you file a mercy petition. It was on Gandhi’s suggestion that he filed a mercy petition. And Mahatma Gandhi had appealed that Savarkar ji should be released.
THE Modi government’s attempt to “explain” away India’s slipping from being 94th on the world hunger index in 2020 to 101st in 2021, a rank well below that of neighbours Pakistan, Nepal or Bangladesh, by questioning the “methodology” of the index, is jejune enough; but even more shocking is its total inability to see the reason behind the acute hunger in the country.Precisely when India has been slipping on the hunger index, the country has had more foodgrain stocks than are required by it according to official “norms”; in fact on September 1, 2021, the FCI had 50.2 million tonnes of foodgr
THE coal crisis in the country led to a significant shortfall of power generation, especially in the Northern region leading to hours of load shedding. However, certain private power producers like Adani Power made windfall profits. Facing blackouts, some state distribution utilities such as Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, were forced to buy power at exorbitant prices from the power trading platform Indian Energy Exchange (IEX).
THE All India Sugarcane Farmers Federation(AISFF) has denounced the recommendations of the Commission of Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) that sugar mills may be permitted to pay the Fair Remuneration Price (FRP) announced by the union government to the sugarcane farmers in instalments.The AISFF in a statement issued to the press on October 21 stated that the recommendations aim to safeguard the interests of sugar mills by putting sugarcane farmers to great harm.
THE two-day AIKS Maharashtra state workshop began on October 1, 2021 at the Comrade Narendra Malusare Sankul, CITU Kamgar Bhawan at Nashik. Because of the Covid pandemic, a physical AIKS state workshop was being held for the first time in the last two years. It was attended by 177 leading activists from 22 districts.
THE series of targeted killings of minorities and migrant workers by terrorist groups in the Kashmir Valley have pushed the besieged territory of Jammu & Kashmir into new depths of despair and gloom. The diabolical aim of killing school teachers, street vendors and migrant workers is clear – deepen the communal divide and create conditions for an exodus. That this is happening in Jammu & Kashmir, which has been under central rule as a union territory since August 2019, is a strong indictment of the way the centre has dealt with J&K and the people of the Valley in particular. T
THE future of Afghanistan will be determined not only in Kabul, where the Taliban is now firmly in power but also in places such as the Wakhan Corridor. A narrow strip of land that runs along the northern fringe of Afghanistan, the Corridor was formed in 1893 as a buffer between the Tsarist empire of Russia and the British empire of India. It is sparsely populated, its roughly 15,000 Wakhi (Kyrgyz) residents reliant upon adventure tourism.