TENS of thousands of farmers from the Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders, led by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), blocked the Kundli Manesar Palwal (KMP) Highway and the Kundli Ghaziabad Palwal (KGP) Highway at several points for 24 hours on April 10-11, 2021. All traffic on this crucial artery that connects the borders of Delhi and is a bypass for all the outer cities, ground to a halt. Huge public meetings were held along with songs and cultural programmes.
THE subversion of constitutional bodies under the Modi regime is proceeding apace. Nothing exemplifies this more than what has happened to the Election Commission of India (EC).The EC’s stand on the elections for three vacant seats from Kerala in the Rajya Sabha has brought out the stark fact that the Commission is bending to the will of the Modi government.
THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions, in a statement issued on April 14, has extended full support to the ongoing strike by the state transport workers in Karnataka (KSRTC) demanding immediate settlement of their long-overdue wage revision. The workers and their unions made all efforts to resolve the issue through more than a year long persuasion with the concerned authorities and the state government.
A BUST of Comrade Jagdish Chandra Basu was installed on April 11, 2021 in Meghauna panchayat in Khagaria.Comrade Jagdish was murdered, the last year-2020 on April 11, during the lockdown. The reason for murdering Comrade Basu was that he was fighting against the culprits of the region, these culprits were involved in killing a principal of Chikni Primary School on August 15, 2019. Comrade Jagdish Chandra was relentlessly fighting for ensuring that the culprits are caught. This gang was involved in multiple murders.
US President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion rescue package is one of the most ambitious measures to revive the US and, with it, the world economy. Coming on the heels of Trump’s $2 trillion package last year and a further $900 billion package announced in December 2020, it seeks not just to provide relief from the pandemic but to start a new boom in the US which, it is expected, will have spill-over effects for the world as a whole, notwithstanding the protectionist measures against imports introduced in the US under Donald Trump.
THE politics of polarisation and violence took its fatal toll in Sitalkuchi in Coochbehar district in the fourth phase of elections in West Bengal. Five youth were killed, four of them in CISF firing in a bizarre turn of events.Sitalkuchi witnessed communal campaign and incitement to violence from the BJP and the TMC even before the elections. In the election campaign, BJP leaders upped the ante of their poisonous campaign. On the other hand, chief minister Mamata Banerjee called upon ‘people’ to ‘gherao’ the central forces.
THE election to Assam Assembly was held in three phases—March 27, April 1, and April 6. The turn out was massive, around 82.04 per cent and the election was by and large peaceful.After the Lok Sabha election in 2019 where BJP won nine out of 14 seats in Assam, the urge for unity against BJP slowly gained ground. The election results of 2016 Assam Assembly election and Lok Sabha election in the state in 2019 show that the combined vote share of non-BJP Parties was greater than the vote share of BJP and its allies. In the 2016 Assembly election, BJP and its allies AGP and BJP got 86 seats.
THE graphs are painful to look at, the surge of cases in Brazil extraordinary, but the surge in other countries (Colombia, Argentina, Mexico) not lagging behind. The focus of attention in Latin America is Covid-19, with many states floundering to manage the spread of the virus, but more so to manage the social chaos it has created.
THE All India Kisan Sabha, in a statement issued on April 8, has condemned the decision of the Narendra Modi led BJP government to allow fertilizer companies to hugely hike the prices of chemical fertilizers. The price of DAP (18-46-00) which was Rs 24,000/MT in 2020 has now been increased to Rs 38,000/MT or an increase of Rs 14,000/MT. Farmers who were paying Rs 1200 for a 50 kg bag have to now pay Rs 1900. The prices of NPK complex fertilizers have also seen an exorbitant rise.
THE ongoing farmers’ struggle in India is an integral part of the class struggle by the producing classes - the peasantry and the working class- the world over against the imperialist globalisation.Declining purchasing capacity of the two major producing classes has paved the way for enormous recession and related massive unemployment and price rise. The trade unions and organisations of the peasants, youth and students have built massive struggles and its natural consequence is mounting people’s fury on the Congress that had initiated imposing LPG policies on the people. In the due cour