HIGH unemployment rates among youth in the past three decades have been a major concern in India’s labour market. Although unemployment rate among youth has increased during the pandemic and the rate of absorption during recovery continues to be low compared to other age groups, but it is not only related to the pandemic. In fact, for the age group 15-24, the ratio of employed people within the age group was quite high in the nineties which declined in the first two decades of the new millennium and stands at 23.2 per cent in 2020.
COMMEMORATING the 135th birth anniversary of Muzaffar Ahmad, affectionately known as Kakababu, the West Bengal state committee of the CPI(M) held a meeting on August 5, in Kolkata.
AT 3 am on July 26, 2023, the presidential guard detained President Mohamed Bazoum in Niamey, the capital of Niger. Troops, led by Brigadier General Abdourahmane Tchiani closed the country’s borders and declared a curfew. The coup d’état was immediately condemned by the Economic Community of West African States, by the African Union, and by the European Union. Both France and the United States – which have military bases in Niger – said that they were watching the situation closely.
THE 10th panchayat elections in West Bengal were marred by massive fraud, vote looting, and manipulation at the counting centres, reducing the electoral process virtually to a farce. These can no longer be called “unprecedented” because such methods of widespread election rigging have characteriSed virtually all Bengal’s local body elections in the past decade. There is almost a consensus now that a major characteristic of the electoral process in Bengal is the incidence of pervasive rigging of elections.
MANY economists have been advocating a universal basic income for India, an idea that was mooted even in the official Economic Survey for 2016-17. Of course the practical proposals towards this end have varied, some suggesting a common universal transfer to all persons below a certain income, and others suggesting a graded transfer depending on how badly off an individual happens to be.
THE Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, has virtually declared that a new front is being opened up in the temple-mosque issue. This time, it is the Gyanvapi mosque and the Vishwanath temple in Varanasi.
THE ministry of finance sub-committee (central) announced the strategic sale of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), popularly known as Vizag Steel, on January 27, 2021. The then recognised union, CITU, united all permanent workers' unions, contract workers' unions, and officer's association on one platform, forming a struggle committee to save Vizag Steel Plant from privatisation.
THE CPI(M) Madurai urban and rural district committees jointly organised a special conference on the ‘Protection of States’ Rights’ on July 23, at Madurai. Addressing the conference, CPI(M) general secretary, Sitaram Yechury said the violence in Manipur is an attack on federalism and plurality of the country unleashed by the BJP has been trying to convert the secular democratic republic of India into a fascist Hindutva rashtra.Yechury said the freedom struggle underlined the need to uphold diversity such as of language, culture and religion.
ON August 1, 2023, a programme was held at Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna Bhawan in Chandigarh, to pay tributes to Comrade Harkishan Singh Surjeet on his 15th death anniversary. Md. Salim, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and West Bengal state secretary, attended the programme as the chief guest. Salim praised Comrade Surjeet's remarkable efforts in preventing the communal BJP from forming a government at the centre by mobilising secular and democratic forces on many occasions.