COMRADE Zahoor Siddiqui, veteran communist and leader of the teachers’ movement in Delhi, passed away in Aligarh on November 3. He was 80 years old. Zahoor Siddiqui was amongst the first batch of members of the CPI(M) in Delhi. He became a member of the regional committee of the CPI(M) whose area of work included Delhi, Haryana and Western UP. Later when the Delhi state committee of the Party was formed in 1977, he became a member of the secretariat of the state committee.
MANABENDRA Nath Roy, popularly known as M N Roy, was an important figure in the early days of the Communist movement in India. Roy was the initiator of the formation of the Communist Party in Tashkent in October 1920. He played a pioneering role in spreading Marxist ideas and the role of a Communist Party amongst the fledgling Communist groups which emerged in India from 1921 onwards.M N Roy’s revolutionary life was a colourful one and he went through many adventurous times before becoming a prominent figure in the Communist International. Roy was born in a village, Arbelia, in the 24 Par
Comrade Gurudas Dasgupta, veteran leader of the CPI and prominent trade union leader , passed away on October 31. He was a former deputy general secretary of the CPI. As the general secretary of the AITUC for a long time, he played an important role in developing the united trade union movement.Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the CPI(M), in a message to CPI, has conveyed his condolences to the family members and comrades of Comrade Gurudas Dasgupta.
THE strike by the workers of the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) has emerged as one of the most significant struggles against privatisation. 48,000 employees of the TSRTC have been on an indefinite strike for over a month, from October 5. The unity and determination of the striking workers in the face of brazen threats by the chief minister, K Chandrashekar Rao, police repression and victimisation have been remarkable. The workers went on strike demanding merger of the RTC with the government, pay revision, recruitment to various posts among other demands. The demand f
COMING within just five months of the Lok Sabha elections, the Vidhan Sabha elections in Maharashtra in October 2019 saw the BJP and its ally the Shiv Sena suffering a setback as a result of the growing discontent of the people with its five year regime.
WE now see a new Anglo-Mysore War being waged: the RSS has aligned with the British to deny Tipu Sultan his role in Indian history. Yediyurappa says Tipu was “not a freedom fighter”, a strange argument to give for dropping all reference to Tipu from history books. It must be difficult for a mind schooled – or more correctly lobotomised – in the RSS School of History to understand that the Anglo Mysore Wars were not wars for Indian independence, but a part of colonial wars that the British waged.
THE 21st International Meeting of Communists and Workers' Parties (IMCWP) appealed for joint actions of workers, peasants and other toiling masses in different corners of the world on their common issues as well as for peace and socialism.
FAST paced moves are on to conclude the talks on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and seal an agreement. The BJP regime is seeking to push through it riding roughshod over the rights of the States and throwing to winds the livelihood of millions of people – the peasantry, agricultural workers, working class, dairy farmers, plantation sector and the poor. There have been noises of protest from the Congress Party which was the chief architect of the India-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and numerous other FTAs in the pipeline.
CPI(M) Polit Bureau has issued the following statement on October 31, 2019THE Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) expresses its anger and condemnation at the manner in which the police in Tripura have treated Badal Chowdhury, former minister and senior leader of the CPI(M). Badal Chowdhury was under treatment at a private hospital when the police forcibly removed him from the hospital yesterday and kept him in a lockup in the police station. Within a few minutes, Badal Chowdhury fell ill with chest pain and breathing difficulty. The government doctor advised that he be
CPI(M) Polit Bureau has issued the following statement October 30, 2019THE central government has chosen the birth anniversary of Vallabhbhai Patel to make the formal declaration of the separation of Ladakh from Jammu and Kashmir and the demeaning of the divided state into two union territories.The CPI(M) reiterates its strong opposition to the abrogation of Sec 370 as well as the division and reduced status of the State of Jammu & Kashmir.It is a shameful day for India’s democracy that a state should be divided and deprived of its status as a full-fledged stat