ISSUES concerning social justice surfaced strongly during the celebrations of 125TH birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar. This emerged in response to BJP and Sangh Parivaar's ongoing efforts to reinstate predatory and obscurantist opinions and ideology, and out of the struggle against these efforts. The concrete expression of such a resistance is visible in the movements in University of Hyderabad (UoH) and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi among others.

THE Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) has written to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and State Bank of India Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya over its recruitment policy and demanded that necessary changes be made in it so as to ensure that bona fide candidates are not left out of the process.

Our Party conferences at district/state/all India level elect steering committees to conduct the schedule of conferences. Once steering committees are formed the entire organisational power is vested in them till the new committees are elected. In view of this, my questions are: if steering committee concept is so important, why it does not at all find a mention in the Party Constitution? The word "steering committee" is completely absent in the Party Constitution at least in the web version. The conference discusses the report by district committee/state committee/CC as the case may be.

OUTWARDLY calm and serene, whether or not this lush green area along the National Highway-2, popularly called Delhi highway, becomes another turning point in the political history of West Bengal or not only time will tell. But a visit to this almost entirely rural constituency in Hooghly district makes one feel that come April 30 another turn, at least in the history of this area, may be in the offing here.

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi has made it a habit to go for campaigning on poll dates in areas adjoining those where polling is taking place and thus trying to influence voting through live telecast of his speeches. But in Bengal elections, he is not doing just that. People are, in fact, asking why the prime minister of the country is making so many election visits to a state where his party does not stand even ghost of a chance, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said at a huge gathering, mainly of peasants, in Namkhana in South 24-Parganas on April 23.