IT was always going to be an uphill fight for the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in the parliamentary polls that were held on December 6. With oil prices hitting historical lows in recent years, the oil dependent economy of the country has not been in a healthy state. Oil accounts for 96 percent of the country's export earnings. With the price of oil sliding from $108 a barrel in June 2014 to under $30 a barrel now, Venezuela's oil income has more than halved in the last two years.

THE All India Kisan Sabha in a statement issued on February 4, notes with concern that the minister of environment and forests is pursuing aggressively for commercial release of GM mustard without carrying out stringent bio-safety tests. The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee is meeting on February 5 to take a decision on the matter. It is to be noted that there is no stringent fool-proof regulatory regime to look into transgenics and possible impact on bio-safety and bio-diversity.

THE All India Agricultural Workers Union has decided to organise a national seminar highlighting the government attacks on social security apparatus in the country. The central working committee that met at Vijayawada on January 17-18 decided to launch a two month long campaign on social security related issues throughout the country. While placing the report before the CWC, Vijayaraghavan, general secretary, said that the Indian agriculture over the last one year is facing severe crisis which has impacted the employment opportunity for agricultural workers seriously.

651 delegates and observers representing the 43 lakh students of the country assembled in the Kana Ram Nagar of Sikar to participate in the highest forum of the biggest contingent of the democratic students’ movement in the country. Conferences are not rituals for an organisation like ours. These are occasions to analyse our performance in the light of the tasks set by the last conference, identify our strengths and weaknesses and subsequently chart out the future tasks for the organisation, as well as, devise means to achieve it.

A TRUE tribute to Comrade Dasharath Deb will be establishing and maintaining live links with the masses, strengthening mass struggles for a better India and better society. To achieve this, we must strengthen our own Party, CPI(M). On the basis of that we have to galvanise the Left unity and ultimately a Left and democratic unity with an alternative policy trajectory, said Sitaram Yechury, CPI(M) general secretary.