ON February 16, 2020, more than a thousand volunteers of the DYFI in Maharashtra started a 125 km protest walk from Uran in Raigad district towards the state capital Mumbai, demanding employment and education opportunities and against the unconstitutional and communal CAA-NRC-NPR drive of the BJP central government.The Maharashtra police mounted inexplicably severe repression on all four days from February 16 to 19 to stop the youth march from moving towards Mumbai. The DYFI had chosen BPCL Terminal at Uran as the starting point and Chaityabhoomi, Mumbai, the final resting place of Dr B R
TWELVE member official (government) delegation from Telengana visited Kerala on March 7, it has opined that Kerala government’s intervention to control the threat of novel corona virus is exemplary and a model for all. They were talking to the media after their consultation with K K Shailaja, minister for health. Kerala has been successful in preventing the spread of the deadly virus.Telengana has also been taking exemplary precaution. All states are following the guidelines of World Health Organization. But the measures taken by Kerala can be considered as model to follow.
JAGAH hai kitni jail me teri, Dekh liya aur dekhenge! (How much space is there in your jails, we have seen, we will see)”, a popular protest slogan, was literally turned into action by women workers under the banner of the All India Coordination Committee of Working Women (CITU) on March 6.
THE 13th state conference of the AIKS Haryana state was held on March 7-8 at Jind. On March 7th a public meeting was held which was attended by a large number of kisans. Because of hail and heavy downpour the venue of the rally had to be changed. The space of the public meeting fell short and a large number of people had to stand in outside the venue. The public meeting was addressed by Ashok Dhawale, Amra Ram, Inderjit, Phul Singh and Harpal Singh.Ashok Dhawale spoke in length about the present condition of the kisans in the country.
THE aftermath of the communal violence in Delhi has clarified many of the questions which arose during the outbreak of violence in North-East Delhi. Upto now, 53 bodies have been found of those killed and over 500 people had suffered injuries.
AFGHANISTAN’S seven-day “reduction in violence” plan negotiated by the US and the Taliban commenced on February 21. Subsequently, the two erstwhile warring parties signed a deal to bring peace to Afghanistan on February 28. America promised phased withdrawal of its military forces from Afghanistan. It is hoped that this will mark the beginning of end of the American involvement in nearly two-decade-old Afghan war which began after the September 11 attacks.The ambiguous US-Taliban agreement signed in Doha, Qatar, was negotiated for more than one year.
THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has expressed serious concern over the cut in interest rate on Employees Provident Fund (EPF) from 8.65 per cent to 8.5 per cent. In the meeting of Central Board of Trustees (CBT) of EPFO held on March 5, 2020, the workers’ representatives in CBT expressed strong dissatisfaction and resentment over the same.The government pleaded that earnings on investment of EPF corpus has gone down from government securities and other investment instruments and the interest rate has been reduced.
BIHAR government must clarify its stand on the NPR; it must issue a gazette notification to withdraw it; the government must also pass a resolution against the CAA. These were the foremost demands of a mass rally in Patna, held in Gandhi Ground on February 26, with the slogan of ‘save constitution, save citizenship’.
THE peasantry in north Indian states is facing severe loss due to unseasonal rain and hailstorm last week that ruined crops especially in Haryana, Punjab, Delhi and parts of Uttar Pradesh. The farmers are facing severe losses as substantial part of the crops has been destroyed.Natural calamities have become unbearable especially to the small and middle peasantry and agricultural workers who are reeling under acute farm crisis across the country.
CPI(M) Polit Bureau has issued the following statement on February 28THE Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) expresses its strong disapproval over the manner in which the central government, which is in-charge of the law and order situation in the capital, is dealing with the communal violence.The Polit Bureau takes particular note on the composition of the two special investigation teams for probing the communal violence. Each one is led by officers of the rank of the deputy commissioner and both of them have played a questionable role in handling the Shaheen Bagh, JNU and Jamia violence earlier