ON May 11, 2017, the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha (AIKS) held an ‘Aasood’ (Whipcord) state convention followed by an ‘Aasood’ state rally to the house of the BJP’s state agriculture minister Pandurang Fundkar at Khamgaon in Buldana district of Vidarbha region. Mahatma Jotirao Phule had written a celebrated book that was aptly called “Shetkaryacha Aasood” (Whipcord of the Farmer). It was from this that the AIKS coined the name. Khamgaon town had been decorated with hundreds of AIKS flags.
THE Maharashtra state committee of the All India Democratic Women’s Association held its meeting last month in the working class city of Solapur, amidst great enthusiasm. It was held in the wake of the recent municipal corporation elections, in which many women candidates of the AIDWA contested on the Left symbol and gave a tough fight.Kamini Adam won as municipal corporator by a thumping majority against candidates of all bourgeois parties and CEC member Naseema Shaikh and some other AIDWA leaders lost by small margins.
THE Modi government is completing three years in office amid much fanfare and propaganda about its achievements during this period. Aiding this propaganda is the advance estimate of GDP which projects a growth-rate of 7.11 per cent for 2016-17, a shade lower than last year’s 7.93 per cent, but apparently impressive nonetheless.
THE BJP government is celebrating the completion of three years in office with their trademark grandiose and fanfare. Seen from the perspective of the vast majority of the Indian people, there is no occasion for any celebration. The livelihood conditions of the Indian people have sharply deteriorated during the course of these three years.The BJP government, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has unveiled the true character of the BJP functioning as the political arm of the RSS. The RSS continues to pursue its ideological project of converting the secular democratic Republic into their
An important feature of the October Revolution was the forging of a worker-peasant alliance. Lenin had set out this strategic alliance as essential for the completion of the democratic revolution and for advancing towards socialism. It is in keeping with this worker-peasant alliance that Lenin gave the slogan of the revolutionary dictatorship of the workers and peasants.On the land question, the Bolshevik party programme called for “Nationalisation of all lands in the country, the land to be disposed off by the local Soviets of Agricultural Labourers and Peasant’s Deputies”. However, the
THE Modi government is set upon privatising defence production in the country. Both foreign and Indian private companies are being invited to enter defence production and the manufacture of hi-tech weaponary. This has serious implications for national sovereignty and the future course of the country.The ministry of defence has finalised its new policy for defence production. It has decided to identify six Strategic Partners (SPs) from domestic Indian companies.
THE 32nd death anniversary of the founder general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Comrade P Sundarayya, was observed by the Party and several mass organisations in Telangana on May 19. Rich tributes were paid to Sundarayya, recollecting his contribution for building the Communist movement, strengthening the Party, mass organisations, conducting struggles of the people and ideological struggle.
THAT the opposition parties winning even one or two wards in municipal elections is ‘banned’ in West Bengal has been proved once again on May 14, when seven municipalities went to polls. As four of them were in the hills and paramilitary forces were deployed during polling, the voting there was peaceful.
AT the last spring meeting of the IMF and the World Bank, Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the IMF, had confidently stated that the world economy was on the path of recovery, a view echoed by most official soothsayers of the system. And yet within days of Lagarde’s remark, fresh data showed that the US economy whose tentative recovery had been the cause of this optimism, was once more slowing down.
LAST week, the world woke up to the largest cyber security threat ever, with a ransomware wannacry originating from NSA's cache of cyber weapons, infecting hundreds of thousands of computers. Computers in more than 150 countries have been infected by the ransomware, with the users locked out of their vital files and data. The criminal group behind wannacry want $300 in bitcoin as ransom, for releasing the files back to their users. The ransom note, displayed on the hacked machines, also say that the ransom will double if the victims do not pay up within three days.