BIPAN CHANDRA (1928-2014)

BIPAN Chandra, one of India’s leading historians and an uncompromising defender of secularism and the scientific spirit, passed away in the early hours of August 30, 2014. His death was widely reported both in the newspapers and the electronic media, where there were also a spate of obituaries and commemorative commentaries. This is how, indeed, it should have been because Bipan Chandra’s death has been a great loss not only to the academic community but to the thinking part of our nation.

West Bengal: Desperation in Scam Time

IT is scam time in West Bengal. What was known to almost everyone, a bit partially, has now been exposed to the public by the ongoing CBI investigations into the Saradha chit fund scam. Almost daily, ministers and leaders of the ruling party and people close to them are being interrogated by central investigation agencies CBI and Enforcement Directorate. Numerous raids have been conducted in their premises and the chain of biggest ever economic fraud in the history of the state is now coming into daylight.

PUNJAB: Four Left Parties Organise Protest Dharna & Demonstration

FOUR Left Parties of Chandigarh and Mohali namely CPI CPI(M), CPM Punjab and CPI (ML) Liberation staged an impressive dharna and held a massive demonstration in Chandigarh at City Centre, Sector 17 on September 2. The dharna was presided over by Raminderpal Singh, Kuldeep Singh, Tarlochan Singh Rana and Lal Bahadur.

The Reality of Provident Fund Linked Pension

PENSION is a demand of all workers, in anticipation of a decent retired life. Indian working class has a long history of struggles for a social security scheme guaranteeing a dignified life. But the situation in the country has been such that a large majority of Indian working people do not even get wages to ensure a decent living while they are working.

Hepatitis and the Thousand Dollar Pill

CAPITAL’S greed to maximise profits respects very few boundaries. If the pharmaceutical industry were to be used as an example, it would seem that greed that is predicated on the helplessness of the sick and the ailing knows no bounds at all. Recent evidence for this comes from the marketing of a drug, called Sovaldi, by the US based company, Gilead.

SHAMELESS PROPAGANDA

THE news was splashed everywhere: India’s GDP in the first quarter (April-June) of 2014-15 had increased at the rate of 5.7 percent over the corresponding quarter of the previous year, and that this was the highest quarterly growth rate recorded for the past two and a half years. The growth rate for the previous quarter (over the corresponding quarter a year ago) was only 4.6 percent; and the growth rate for the first quarter of 2013-14 (over the corresponding quarter a year ago) was only 4.7 percent.

AIDWA Holds Massive Rally Against Communal Modi Regime

EVEN the torrential rains could not dampen the spirit of thousands of women – overwhelming majority of them tribals – who enthusiastically participated in the huge public meeting organised by the AIDWA Palghar-Thane district committee on August 27, 2014. Young and old, the women came in trucks, tempos, jeeps, buses and rickshaws. Hundreds of them came walking from the neighbouring villages, with children in hand.

Left Parties Join Hands to Continue People’s Struggle in Telangana

The Left and Communist parties in the newly carved-out state of Telangana have reminded the KCR-led government of the promises made to the people before and after the first assembly elections in the state and warned it of mass struggles if it failed to live up to the people’s expectations. They also cautioned the new government against adopting neo-liberal policies that will come in the way of the people’s welfare and all-round development of the state.

Left Parties Organises Convention Against Communalism in Ranchi

THE Left Parties – CPI (M), CPI, CPI (ML), Marxist Co-ordination Committee and Forward Bloc – organised a state-level convention against communalism at Ranchi’s Theological Hall.

CITU Seeks Corrective Changes in UPA Govt’s Drug Prices Control Order

CITU general secretary and MP Tapan Sen has sought union chemicals and fertilisers minister Ananth Kumar’s urgent intervention to bring about effective corrective changes to the Drug Prices Control Order, introduced by the Congress-led UPA-II government in 2013. Sen said the UPA government’s deceptive price control order has created gross perversion in the drugs market, severely affecting the common people’s right to access to essential and life-saving drugs at affordable price.

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