IF there is any confirmation required that the Modi government is fully aligned with the United States’ strategy in Asia, it has come with the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to India. During the visit, various agreements were signed which established close military and security ties with Japan. This is what the United States has wanted India to do as Japan and India are the two pillars in its Asia-Pacific strategy. It is under the urging of the United States that the trilateral security alliance was forged during Modi’s visit to Japan in September 2014.

THE CPI(M) is holding a Plenum on Organisation in Kolkata from December 27 to 31. The Plenum is meant to discuss the important question of how to strengthen the Party organisation to meet the rightwing offensive unfolding in the country. The Political-Tactical Line of the 21st Congress has called for fighting back the rightwing offensive represented by the forces of neo-liberalism, communalism and authoritarianism. The Party organisation has to be geared up to effectively fight these forces.

THE prices of essential commodities have sky-rocketed; no work is available under MNREGA in the villages; the means of livelihood of the peasants have shrunk due to drought; and over and above this, ration grains too are not being distributed. Women face harassment in the government hospital. These factors led to tremendous unrest and anger amongst women in the Dahanu tehsil of Palghar district. Many memoranda were submitted to the officials and discussions held on the atrocious functioning of the PDS. But to no avail.

Below we reproduce the memorandum sent by Deben Bhattacharya, Assam state secretary of the Communist Party of India(Marxist), to the President of India on December 6, on the communal remarks of the governor of Assam.THE Assam State Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) would like to draw your kind attention to the unwarranted and blatantly communal role of the governor of Assam, Padmanabh Balakrishna Acharya, and solicits your immediate intervention on the matter.It is a matter of grave concern that governor P B Acharya has been misusing his constitutional position si

THE news coming from Latin America for the past few days is not encouraging. First, it was the defeat of the Peronist candidate Daniel Scioli in Argentina in the run-off for the presidential election. Then came the news of the moves to impeach Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and finally, the opposition victory in the legislative elections in Venezuela.