THE entire people of Kashmir valley are up in revolt against the Indian State.  This has been vividly brought out in the past week.  The by-election to the Srinagar parliamentary seat saw an abysmal participation with only 7.12 percent of the votes cast. This record low polling was not because of coercion and intimidation, but mainly by the people refusing to participate in the election.

THE war between Morocco and the Polisario Front, which represents the government of Western Sahara that ended in 1991, is now threatening to erupt again.  The Moroccan government which occupied a major chunk of the territory after the hasty withdrawal of the Spanish colonial power in 1974, has refused to honor its commitments to the international community and allow the holding of a United Nations supervised referendum. The former UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, had said last year that Morocco was in illegal “occupation” of the territory.

THE Supreme Court’s rejection of Special Leave Petitions against the judgement of the Tripura High Court which set aside the appointment of 10,323 school teachers without considering the far-reaching effect, disappointed large sections of people of Tripura including teachers and students. A division bench led by the then Tripura High Court Chief Justice Dipak Gupta (recently elevated to the Supreme Court) by its order dated May 7, 2014 quashed the appointment of 10,323 teachers which include 1,102 post-graduate teachers, 4,856 graduate teachers and 4,856 under-graduate teachers.

ALONG with our continuous struggle for restoration of democracy and against fascistic attacks by the TMC and its government, West Bengal state committee has placed special emphasis on Party education among the comrades. State level permanent party school (Promode Dasgupta Education Centre) is functioning regularly. State level schools are held regularly. At the district level, party schools are being held quite regularly.  Some of the district committees have set up their own permanent schools.

THE BJP’s massive majority in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections led to the anointment of Yogi Adityanath as the chief minister. And in his very first pronouncement, the ‘Yogi’ ordered the ban of slaughter houses in the state. The argument made by the newly elected government was that these slaughter houses were not following the National Green Tribunal guidelines and hence they should be closed. Close on the heels of this pronouncement was the amendment in the Gujarat government’s law which stipulated that a person who killed a cow would get life imprisonment.