Dilution of SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities ActDSMM Demands Filing of Review Petition on Supreme Court OrderThe National Executive committee Meeting of the Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch (DSMM) has issued the following statement on March 21.THE national executive committee of the Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch (DSMM) expressed its grave concern over the judgement given by Supreme Court with regard to the enforcement of the Prevention of Atrocities Act (POA Act). The SC has considerably diluted the stringent provisions of the implementation of the Act.
THE Delhi state units of the Left parties – CPI(M), CPI, AIFB, RSP, CPI(M-L) Liberation, SUCI (C) and CGPI held a demonstration at Sansad Marg on March 9 to protest against the unprecedented attacks on Left cadres and supporters in Tripura by the RSS-BJP following the recent assembly polls in the state.Addressing the protestors, Prakash Karat, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M) said that these attacks were aimed at browbeating the Left parties and their supporters in Tripura. They constitute a heinous attack on democracy.
THE 15th Haryana state conference of the CPI(M) was held in Tohana in Fatehabad from March 11 to March 13. The conference gave a call for waging fierce struggles on various people’s issues and strengthen the party organissation.Public MeetingThe conference began with a public meeting, Jan Adhikar Rally, at Tohana Grain Market. It was presided over by CPI(M) state secretariat members Inderjit Singh and Shakuntala Jakhar. The stage was named after Prithvi Singh, the popular Communist leader of Haryana from Gorakhpur village in Fatehabad district.
THE responses and protests against the murders of Madhukar in Manthani and Naresh and Swathi in Yadadri-Bhongir (district) in Telangana have provided two different experiences. There was a wide response on the murder of Naresh and Swathi. People from Hyderabad and other places responded to this incident in a big way. The murder of Madhukar was also sensational but it did not evoke a wide response. These two are caste related murders. But protests were not the same.
THE two-day national convention and a photo feature organised by the Bhumi Adhikar Andolan on ‘Agrarian Crisis, Assault on Cattle Economy and Lynching of Dalits and Minorities’ was convened on March 20-21, with a victory note following the long march of farmers in Maharashtra and the acceptance of all their demands which evoked a sense of inspiration and energy among all those gathered in at the Constitution Club in New Delhi.
THE executive committee of the All India Peoples Science Network (AIPSN) met on March 17-18 in Chennai and decided to join the Global March for Science to be held on April 14. The AIPSN sees a pattern in the attacks on science and reason across the world.
VARIOUS women’s organisations held a militant protest demonstration outside the Vasant Kunj (North) police station on March 20, against the inordinate delay by the police in arresting Prof Atul Johri who has been accused of sexual harassment by nine women students. Professor Atul Johri is a senior professor at the School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University. The harassment of girl students in JNU is highly condemnable and shameful. Nine students from his laboratory have registered a police complaint against Prof Johri.
THE BJP has suffered a shock defeat in the two by-elections to the Lok Sabha seats of Gorakhpur and Phulpur. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election, these two seats were won by Yogi Adityanath, now chief minister and Keshav Prasad Maurya, now deputy chief minister with a margin of over 3 lakh votes each. This time around the seats were won by Samajwadi Party candidates who were supported by its arch rival, the BSP.There is no doubt that these results will have significant implications for the future.
THE 25th state conference of CPI(M) West Bengal committee has called upon Party workers to strengthen links with people and build up movements on people’s issues. The conference noted that discontent of the people against the TMC regime in the state was growing, creating new possibilities of resistance. The Party has to utilise the opportunity and develop struggles on achievable demands.
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury condemned the pre-planned, barbarous attacks that have been let loose by the BJP on the common people in the state of Tripura and demanded an immediate end to this barbarism. The BJP dispensation that assumed office taking oath in the name of the Constitution of the country must act upon to stop these dreadful attacks throughout the state on the Left supporters, he said on March 11.