THE Una incident in Gujarat where seven dalit men were attacked and of whom four were stripped, badly beaten and paraded in the town is the latest dalit atrocity which has come to nationwide attention. That this has occurred in Gujarat is significant. The Hindutva campaign against cow slaughter and the targeting of Muslims and dalits in this connection is being conducted all over the country but it has been virulent in this bastion of the BJP. The four men who were assaulted had gone to skin a dead cow at the behest of its owner, a farmer.

The Central Committee of the CPI(M) has called on the Party units all over the country to observe nationwide protest action from July 11 to 17, 2016 focusing on price rise and growing unemployment. Below are the glimpses of the protest actions from across the country.

Is ultra-leftism an ideology?  If it is not then why does our Party use this terminology and give it recognition?Shambuprasad Mamgayi, DehradunTHERE is no denying that ultra-leftism is a political trend which has to be understood and fought in the ideological and public sphere.  Even Lenin had to counter this trend within the Bolshevik Party and he wrote his famous pamphlet “Left Wing Communism – an Infantile Disorder”.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury has written to the prime minister on the non-payment of bank loans of more than Rs 8.55 lakh crore by borrowers, particularly big corporate houses, and requested him to initiate an action plan to monetise the assets of all defaulters. He requested the prime minister to put into practice an urgent action plan to start recovery of pending loans from the top 100 borrowers. “You must begin by making public their names with the due amount; the list is already available with the RBI, your government and the Supreme Court.

THE revised budget of the Kerala government for 2016-17 presented by the finance minister Dr T M Thomas Isaac will be noted for the historic effort it makes to cross the barrier of neoliberal fiscal conservatism. The upper limit of fiscal deficit set for the state government is three percent of the state domestic product (SDP). This cap on borrowings is too debilitating for the state government, especially in view of the mounting revenue deficit of the state.