THE recently concluded UN climate conference in Katowice, Poland (COP24) was held to prepare a rulebook for the implementation of the Paris Agreement. The decisions adopted marked the further consolidation of the hold of the developed countries. The US is very much in the driver's seat in the negotiations along with the EU and others despite its announced withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and its public differences on climate action in forums such as the G-8. They are clearly designed to reinforce the inequitable and discriminatory aspects of the Agreement.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement on December 20.THE Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) at its December 15-16, 2018 meeting decided to remove G V Sreerama Reddy, member of the Central Committee and secretary of the Karnataka state committee of the Party from all elected positions in the Party on charges of serious misconduct.The Karnataka state committee of the Party held a meeting on December 18, which was attended by the general secretary and four Polit Bureau members.

A betrayal of the youthWITH every passing day, the BJP led coalition government in Tripura is showing its true colours. It is implementing all the anti-people, neoliberal policies the Modi government at the centre stands for, in a complete betrayal of the people. The BJP in its vision document for the last assembly elections had promised employment for all the households and 50,000 government jobs every year. But the last nine months have seen no new appointment in government services.

IN a statement issued on December 15 expressing pain and sorrow over the brutal killing of civilians by security forces at Kharpora Sirnoo village of Pulwama district, CPI(M) leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami said for the BJP, Kashmir is expendable for its narrow electoral interests.This horrible incident which took place on December 15, is a big shock and setback to any effort to restore peace in the valley. The civilian killings have become everyday norm in Kashmir now and it seems New Delhi is least bothered about this.

THE ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is anti-federal in practice and in theory and ideology, accused Thomas Isaac, finance minister of Kerala and a member of CPI(M) Central Committee. The Modi government has been systematically destroying the federal structure of India, Isaac said. He addressed a seminar at Vijayawada on December 14, on “BJP rule and centre-state relations” in connection with the 104th birth anniversary of Comrade Makineni Basavapunnaiah, one of the founding leaders of CPI(M).