BANK nationalisation is going to complete its fifty years glorious journey playing an unprecedented pivotal role in the all-round development of our country’s economy. Public Sector Banks (PSBs) of our country, as on March 31, 2019, hold a sum of Rs 84.86 lakh crores as deposits. 85 per cent of this amount is from small deposits by common people of our country, who keep their savings in bank accounts, mainly in PSBs to meet their future family requirements. They do not go to the stock market for earning some speculating gains.
THE image of President Trump speaking to the media in Washington in the presence of Pakistan Prime Minister, Imran Khan, about Modi’s purported request to him to mediate on Kashmir has had a shattering effect. The issue is not whether Modi actually asked Trump to mediate or not, but how this episode has revealed the fiasco that Modi’s foreign policy has turned out to be. Imran Khan’s visit to the United States was an affirmation of how the Trump administration has changed its approach to Pakistan.
CPI(M) West Bengal state secretary Surjyakanta Misra asserted that there can be no political battle against communal forces and the BJP with the help of TMC or the vice versa.In a statement, Misra said, TMC and BJP, through their divisive political line have accentuated the atmosphere of violence and provocation in different parts of the state. The state administration has miserably failed to protect peace, harmony and security of citizens.
A PUBLIC meeting was held in Tirunelveli on July 12, to condemn the killing of Comrade Ashok, district treasurer of DYFI and CPI(M) activist, by caste Hindu goons.
ON July 5, Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2019-20 in Lok Sabha and subsequently it was laid in Rajya Sabha. Speaking on the budget in Lok Sabha, P Natarajan said it is shocking that the government has chosen to give several tax concessions to the corporate sector while burdening the common people with additional excise duties on petrol and diesel to the tune of Rs 2 per litre. The budget shows very little increase in spending for people. Total subsidies as per cent of total expenditure have remained almost unchanged at about 12 per cent.
THE employment guarantee scheme has been one of those government interventions in our country which have been most beneficial to the people. As per last year's revised estimates, the government had sanctioned Rs 61,084 crore for this scheme. But the NDA-II government has allocated only Rs 60,000 crore for the scheme in this year's budget – a reduction of Rs 1,084 crore when compared to the previous budget. Even though the scheme is supposed to provide 100 days of employment per worker, the average days of employment per worker so far is just 46 days.
CPI(M) Polit Bureau has issued the following statement on July 12THE three-tier panchayat election to be held in Tripura on July 27, 2019 is witnessing a massive and widespread attack on the democratic process. During the nomination period, from July 1 to 8, candidates of the CPI(M) and other opposition parties were prevented from collecting and filing nomination papers by armed gangs of the BJP. Bike-borne hoodlums of the BJP were stationed before the election offices, so that no opposition candidate could collect or submit nomination papers.
ONE cannot but be struck by the tone of smug self-satisfaction that pervades this report, that India was the origin of most great ideas including the Pythagoras theorem and the Fibonacci series, that Indian universities like Nalanda and Taxila were unique and unparalleled institutions, and that Sanskrit has a literature that is larger than Latin and Classical Greek combined, and so on. In fact the report recommends the setting up of a Mission Nalanda and Mission Taxila to revive old glory.
MOBILE gaming or broadly video gaming has caught India like fire. It has become a common sight to find people fiddling with their mobiles in any public place. Even in interactions within a family or closely-knit friends, ‘phubbing’ (the act of ignoring someone you are with, and giving attention to your mobile phone instead) has become common. The spread of internet availability also is making us give more importance to our mobiles than to other forms of social interactions. One of the major pass-times for the young is to play various games on mobiles.
SITARAM Yechury, general secretary of CPI(M) has called upon the secular democratic forces and the people of the country to meet the challenges thrown by BJP, the political arm of fascistic RSS.