THE dastardly assassination of Comrade Govind Pansare, the veteran 81-year old former CPI state secretary, national council member, trade union leader, eminent lawyer and prominent Marxist intellectual and writer – exactly a year and a half after the similar assassination of renowned rationalist and socialist Dr Narendra Dabholkar - has been another black mark in the recent history of Maharashtra.
THE budget session of the parliament in which the BJP led government placed its first full-fledged budget began on February 23, 2014. This session has almost 20 days of sitting.The parliament began with the president’s address to the joint session of both the houses of parliament.
THE conference of the CPI(M) Kerala state unit was held at Alappuzha from February 20-23, 2015 in the land of historical Punnapra-Vayalar struggle, in the run-up to the 21st Congress of the CPI(M). In this conference, all together 574 comrades participated including 558 delegates and 16 observers. The state conference was inaugurated by Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Party. Pinarayi Vijayan, state secretary presented the state report.
THE 21st conference of CPI(M) Tripura state committee concluded successfully with a clarion call to the workers to build a model and stronger Party unit in the state. The conference commenced on February 25 with a massive rally in Agartala and ended on February 28.
The following are the statements issued by various mass organisations on the annual budget 2015-16:
Deception & Loot on
Common People, says CITU
THE annual budget presented by the Modi government is an articulation of anti-people and pro-corporate bias camouflaged by so-called pro-people rhetoric.
BUDGETS these days deliberately tend to produce a miasma of words and figures, which can then be interpreted by the “pundits” in TV studios in so many diverse and confusing ways that the class content of the budget gets effectively camouflaged. But the miasma produced by Jaitley this year can scarcely conceal the class content of his budget. This is because his is the most brazenly pro-corporate, pro-rich and anti-people budget in recent memory.
BREAKING from tradition, the BJP-led NDA government has chosen to issue a two (as opposed to single)-volume edition of the Economic Survey, released as per convention on the day before the budget for coming fiscal year 2015-16 was presented. The Survey is meant to be a ‘state of the economy’ report that identifies the positives that can be leveraged and the negatives that need to be addressed when the finance minister rises to present his budget. It is as much an assessment of the situation as a justification of the direction that the budget would take.
SUCCESSFULLY resisting the right wing neo-liberal offensive launched by the Modi government is only possible with the strengthening of CPI(M) and other Left parties, and through united struggles, said CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat. He promised that the CPI(M) would take initiative in forging widest possible unity among Left and democratic forces in the country towards achieving this end.
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement on March 1, 2015THE prices of petrol and diesel have been increased by over Rs 3 a litre, hours after the union budget imposing greater burdens on the people was presented. This is the second hike in the prices of petrol and diesel this month.The union government instead of reducing the excise duty is passing the burdens on to the people.This increase in prices of petrol and diesel is unacceptable.
IT rained all through the day and night on March 1, pouring down and flooding the streets. Not only in Delhi but in almost all parts of the country.But nothing could deter the determined ASHA workers from making their way to Delhi. They came from 13 states of India – from far off Tripura, Kerala, Telangana, Karnataka, Odisha, Bihar, and nearer J&K, Gujarat, Maharashtra, UP, Punjab Haryana, and Delhi.