Kerala: CBI to Investigate Titanium Graft Case

In a major jolt to the UDF in Kerala, the state government has recommended a CBI enquiry into the Titanium scam case, which involved former chief minister, Oommen Chandy, opposition leader Ramesh Chenninthala and former minister, V K Ibrahim Kunju. The case is being investigated in connection with the establishment of pollution control system in the Travancore Titanium Products Limited, in 2004-2005 when Oommen Chandy was the chief minister and Ibrahim Kunju was the minister for industries.

FDI in the Coal Sector

JOAN Robinson, the well-known economist, had drawn attention to a fundamental difference between foreign direct investment in the manufacturing sector and foreign direct investment in a sector that extracted an exhaustible resource, such as a mineral product. This difference can be illustrated with an example.Suppose in both sectors profits worth Rs 100 are earned and repatriated abroad each year by the foreign company; and suppose the life of the mine is 10 years.

DELHI: DTF Scores Historic Victory in DUTA Elections

The victory of the Democratic Teachers’ Front (DTF) in the elections for the post of President and membership of the Executive of the Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) held on August 29, is a historic victory. Rajib Ray, the DTF candidate for the post of DUTA president, was elected for a second term defeating in a straight contest the BJP-affiliated National Democratic Teachers’ Front (NDTF). The Congress-affiliated groups had not put up any candidate for the post.

PSBs Merger Facilitates Easy Siphoning Off Public Money to Corporates: CITU

THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), in a statement issued on September 1, has denounced the decision of central government to merge 10 public sector banks into four entities, thereby reducing the number of public sector banks (PSB) to 12. It said that the move was utterly destructive. CITU said that the exercise is meant for drastically squeezing the public sector banks’ operational areas through inevitable closure of a huge number of bank-branches.

Destructive Decisions of the Government

The following is the statement issued by the CITU on August 29THE BJP government at the centre has taken some destructive decisions in the recent past. The RBI was forced to transfer of Rs 1.76 lakh crore from its reserves. This was done by the obliging team of bureaucrats put at the helm of RBI Board.Another destructive feature is the concession given to big business class in the form of withdrawal of surcharge on direct tax and liberalisation of lending norms etc., reportedly for further incentivising them somewhere else.

Desperate to Privatise Air India

THE CENTRE of Indian Trade Unions(CITU) denounces desperate move of the BJP government to completely privatise the national carrier, Air India by way of divesting its entire shareholding in favour of a chosen single buyer in the “shortest possible time available”, obviously this is going to be a distress sale.The desperateness of the government in a selling spree, of all national assets has arisen out of its failure to privatise Air India through sale of 76 per cent government shareholding during its previous regime.

AP: CITU Opposes Closure of Chittivalasa Jute Mill

THE CITU was successful in getting a stay order from the AP High Court against the closure of Chittivalasa Jute Mill. Interestingly, the memorandum of understanding for closure of the mill was arrived between the management of the mill and four workers union, viz., INTUC, AITUC, TNTUC and YSRTUC. The CITU had opposed this agreement and had promised to continue with the struggle.

BSNLEU Demands Disbursement of August Salary

BSNL Employees Union has issued the following statement on September 2THE BSNL management has once again failed to disburse salary to its employees for the month of August 2019. It is regrettable to note that the management is not even able to tell the employees, as to when this salary disbursement will take place. This is the third time in this year, that the BSNL management is unable to disburse salary to its employees on time.

Oppose Bank Mergers

THE BANK Employees Federation of India(BEFI) has strongly condemned the decision of the union government to merge 10 public sector banks(PSBs) into four.The country has just observed 50 years of bank nationalisation when the entire country recollected the yeomen service provided by the PSBs for the nation as well as its people. The PSBs gave the Indian economy a strong foundation.

Amazon Fires, White Nationalism and the Logic of Capital

THE Amazon fires with Brazil at its epicentre, have become worldwide news. Explaining the fires recently, Douglas Morton, chief of the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center said that August 2019 stands out as a month with a far higher number of fires than any preceding year since 2010. This is similar to what the Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) had reported earlier.

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