WHILE the tsunami waves that hit the coasts of India in 2004 took some lives on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the adivasi population of Jarava, Onges adivasis that have inhabited the islands for thousands of years managed to walk safe out of the disaster. These adivasis have always been living a primitive life, with almost no contact with the outside world. While the whole world was astonished at their survival in face of the disaster, researchers have theorised that just like animals and birds, tribals too might have sensed the danger of tsunami beforehand.

COMRADE Shameem Faizee, member of national secretariat of the CPI and editor of New Age, died on July 5, 2019 after an illness due to cancer. Faizee joined the CPI in 1965 in Nagpur and served the CPI in various journalistic capacities. He was the editor of Hayat, the Urdu journal of the CPI and was associated with various other Urdu publications. He was also the managing director of People’s Publishing House till his death.His demise is a great loss for the CPI and the Left forces.

THE union budget for 2019-20, presented by Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman in parliament on July 5, fails to live up to the expectations of the vast majority of the people – workers, farmers, agricultural workers, women and the disabled. The first budget of the Modi-2 government is a gift to the corporate India and foreign financial interests who will strengthen their hold on economy.

TELANGANA committee of the CPI(M) has organised an extended state committee meeting of the Party on July 9, at Sundarayya Vignana Kendram in Hyderabad. Party general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Polit Bureau members, Prakash Karat and B V Raghavulu attended the meeting. It was presided over by Ch Seetharamulu, Central Committee member of the Party.Addressing the meeting, Sitaram Yechury said that the union budget is encouraging privatisation. He said the NDA government under the leadership of the BJP has given the current budget as a gift to the corporates.

SINCE Piyush Goyal tabled the interim budget before parliament earlier this year (February 1, 2019), the Lok Sabha elections giving the Modi government an almost certain additional five years in office is not the only development. In addition to the reality of deepening agrarian distress and grim employment situation that were known even then, at least three other mutually related hard facts relevant to the finalisation of the budget for 2019-20 have also become known since, being acknowledged even by the Economic Survey.