THE legislative assembly of Kerala has become the first state legislature to adopt a unanimous resolution expressing solidarity with the people of Lakshadweep. The resolution demanded the central government to recall its administrator Praful Khoda Patel.
THE ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) issued a new set of rules as part of the IT Act on February 25, 2021, termed the "Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics." Social media intermediaries such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp were given three months (by May 25th) to comply with the rules or lose their 'safe harbour' provisions.
Below we publish the full text of the fraternal message of greetings sent to Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), by Sitaram Yechury, general secretary, CPI(M) on the occasion of the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.
THE state committee of CPI(M) has strongly condemned an attack on Ajay Kumar, leader of the legislature party in the state assembly. A member of the state secretariat, he was attacked on May 29, around 10 pm at the CPI(M) district office in Samastipur. The Bibhutipur MLA was also attacked on May 2; he narrowly escaped. The attack on May 29 appears a part of the same conspiracy and is highly condemnable. Security guards who were with Ajay Kumar were badly injured.
AS the peak of the second wave of the Covid pandemic begins to slowly recede, the havoc wreaked on lakhs of families has been occupying the attention of the whole country. There is widespread dismay and anger at the way the health emergency caught the Modi government unprepared.
Today, as peasants gather in Delhi to mark six months of one of the most popular protests in contemporary times, what lessons does a 1907 incident have?ON May 26, 1907, Lord Minto, viceroy and governor general of India, put an end to one of the most intense popular peasant agitations in the Punjab province by the exercise of a veto on the Colonisation Bill introduced in the Punjab Legislative Council in October 1906.The veto effectively put the break on rural discontent which had spread across several districts of Punjab.
Delivering a lecture on ‘Covid-19 Crisis and the Role of Governments’ on the eve of the 36th death anniversary of Comrade Puchalapalli Sundarayya, the first general secretary of CPI(M) on May 19, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said it is the responsibility of the governments to protect the lives and livelihoods of the people and that it is their fundamental duty in a democracy.
FOLLOWING its $1.9 trillion Covid-relief package, the Biden administration has further announced an infrastructure package of $2.3 trillion. But in contrast to the former which is to be spent within months, the latter is to be spent over an eight-year period. And this package in turn is to be followed by a “human infrastructure” package. All this adds up to a massive stimulus for the economy as well as a massive redistributive programme, especially since the infrastructure package is proposed to be substantially financed through an increase in corporate tax rates.
IT has become a routine to slap sedition charges against those questioning the government, Bennet University professor Madabhashi Sridhar rued and asserted that questioning those in power and highlighting the shortcomings in governance is the right of the people. If a sedition case is proved as false in court, why counter case should not be filed against those who have filed such affidavits. No compensation is being paid when such sedition cases are proved false in courts, and in this context all rules, acts, parliaments and government become irrelevant.
HUMAN suffering is regarded as a secondary issue in our country. We listen to fake history spread through the media by our rulers that are intended to praise our ancient past and to also to re-write our history so that it is sanitized of any traces of our socialist, secular and democratic character of our constitution. They regard this as a purification for our people.