THE Supreme Court of India has delivered an important judgment on November 4, 2022 on the Employees’ Pension Scheme-95 (EPS-95). At the outset, it is all the more relevant here to clarify that this judgment has nothing to do with the question of enhancement of minimum pension under EPS-95, on which lakhs of industrial workers have been agitating since long.Over time, the EPS-95, for which huge workers’ money is taken away, became a mockery with lakhs of workers getting less than Rs 100 per month as pension.

The CPI(M) has strongly condemned the brutal killings of Junaid and Nasir and the dangerous politics of cow vigilantism promoted by right-wing groups in India. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, Brinda Karat and Central Committee member, Amra Ram visited Ghatmika village in Rajasthan on February 18, to meet the families of the victims and express condolences and support for them. They criticised the lack of action by the state government and law enforcement agencies in bringing the perpetrators to justice.

KARNATAKA minister’s hate-speech that hit national headlines and the budget presented last week clearly brought forth the Karnataka BJP government’s dogged pursuit of neoliberal-Hindutva agenda. Minister for higher education C N Aswathnarayana in a rally in Mandya gave a call to ‘finish off’ Congress leader Siddaramaiah the way “Vokkaliga chieftains Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda finished off Tipu Sultan”.According to recently revised history of Hindutva brigade, Tipu did not die fighting British, but was killed by Vokkaliga chieftains for betraying Mysore Wodeyars!

With the Ukraine war now reaching its one-year mark on February 24, the Russians have not achieved a military victory but neither has the West achieved its goals on the economic front. When Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States and its European allies vowed to impose crippling sanctions that would bring Russia to its knees and force it to withdraw.Western sanctions would erect a new Iron Curtain, hundreds of miles to the east of the old one, separating an isolated, defeated, bankrupt Russia from a reunited, triumphant and prosperous West.

THE incidents of February 16 that began near Peruka on the border between Rajasthan and Haryana and ended in the Nuh area in Bhiwani district of Haryana, are notable not only for the barbarity and cruel violence meted out to two Muslims, Junaid and Nasir but also for what they reveal about the collusion between the Haryana police and cow vigilantes and the complete impunity with which the latter are allowed to perpetrate crimes in the name of ‘gau seva’ (cow protection).The details are well-known.