ON October 3, 2016, over 50,000 adivasi peasants, women, youth and students from all over Maharashtra under the joint leadership of the AIKS, AIDWA, DYFI, SFI and AARM held an unprecedented gherao agitation outside adivasi development minister Vishnu Savra's house at the sub divisional centre of Wada in Palghar district. The gherao continued for 16 hours till dawn on October 4 with tens of thousands of people.
BJP’s Raghubar Das government of Jharkhand launched a serious attack on the adivasi, dalit and OBC peasants’ lands in Jharkhand violating the basic features of Jharkhand’s tenancy laws and of the constitution of India. This attack is to implement Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project ‘Make in India’ in Jharkhand for the loot of Jharkhand’s land and natural resources by the Desi and Videshi corporates.
UNABATED repression and police highhandedness marked the visit of CPI(M) Andhra Pradesh state secretary P Madhu and other Left leaders to Bhimavaram in West Godavari district where villagers have been protesting against the setting up of a mega food park. The proposed Aqua Food Park is one of the 42 mega units sanctioned by the erstwhile UPA-II government. The food park intends to provide processing and storage facilities for fish and prawn in East and West Godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh.
THE All India Kisan Sabha, in a statement issued on October 5, has noted that the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) and the BJP-led NDA government seem to be in an undue haste to commercially release GM Mustard. This is despite the absence of any credible regulatory mechanism that can conduct long-term tests and ensure bio-safety concerns can be addressed. The data has also not been made public despite repeated efforts and even order from Central Information Commissioner.
Swami Vivekananda emerged as an iconic saint-philosopher who is credited for bringing a new momentum to the process of Hindu revivalism in the 19th century. The Hindu nationalists spearheaded by RSS and its affiliates have and continue to project Swamiji as the leading light of militant Hindutva. The CPI(M) and the Left have not taken it upon themselves to confront his ideas in a vigorous manner. Why is it so?Biswajit Ghosh, Kolkata ANY Marxist approach to critically evaluate historical personalities who have profoundly influenced contemporary thinking begins with a bas
A WEEK after the official announcement about the surgical strikes conducted across the Line of Control, there is much which is unclear about this operation and what it has achieved. Through briefings to the media, it was put out that seven terrorist launch pads were targeted by two groups of special forces.
THE Eleventh Convention of All India Co-ordination Committee of Working Women (AICCWW) was held in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh for two days, on September 29-30, 2016. The venue of the convention is named after Comrade Arati Dasgupta, who was one of the prominent leaders of the working class movement in West Bengal. The convention started with the flag hoisting by Neelima Maitra, veteran leader of the AICCWW and working committee member of the Centre of India Trade Unions.196 delegates from 14 states participated in this convention.
SPEAKING in a voice thick with genuine emotion, Comrade Mohd Yusuf Tarigami, CPI(M) Central Committee member representing Kulgam for the fourth consecutive term in the J&K assembly, made a passionate appeal to the government of India to urgently initiate unconditional talks with the Kashmiris if the state was to be saved from going beyond the point of no return.Tarigami was speaking to a packed hall at Jasbir Memorial in Rohtak on September 19 evening on the conditions prevailing in the Valley today and possibilities of retrieving the situation.
THE national conference of the Indian Workers’ Association (Great Britain), one of the oldest NRI organisations, took place in Derby on September 11. Delegates from across the UK assembled to discuss and deliberate upon the report presented by Joginder Kaur on behalf of the Central Executive Committee of IWA (GB). The conference was organised in a hall dedicated to all the founders of the Association.
THE Indo-Canadian Workers’ Association (ICWA) of Canada organised its annual Public Mela on August 14 at Stetson Boyal Stadium in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. This year’s mela was dedicated to the Gadhar martyrs of 1916 -- Babu Harnam Singh Sahri, Sohal Lal Pathik, Beer Singh Bahowal, Uttam Singh Haans and Easher Singh Thudike among others.