WEST Bengal Provincial Krishak Sabha (AIKS) started Krishak Jathas throughout the state on October 15. The jathas will crisscross entire rural Bengal for five days. The jathas, mainly at block level, will travel across all villages in the state, mobilising thousands of peasants and agricultural workers, rural poor in an unprecedented manner in recent memory.
THE very severe cyclonic storm Hudhud inflicted serious damage to the coastal city of Vishakapatnam in Andhra Pradesh as it made landfall at Kailasagiri on the outskirts of the city at 11:30 am on October 12. It also seriously affected the north coastal districts of the state along with few coastal areas in Odisha. The prior warning by the Cyclone Warning Division of India Meteorological Department and its exact prediction of path of the cyclone reduced the loss of lives to 35 persons.
THE All India Kisan Sabha, in a statement issued on October 12 has strongly protested against the import of natural rubber that causes fall in rubber prices and brings havoc in the life of around ten lakh rubber producer households especially in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa and North Eastern states. The average price of natural rubber in 2010-11 was Rs 240 per Kilogram. In the last three years it has come down heavily and now stands at Rs 110 per kilogram and small farmers are selling for Rs 95 per kilogram.
THE Left Democratic Youth Federation, a common platform of Left and democratic youth organisations in Kerala has launched a massive indefinite hunger strike in front of the State Secretariat building in Thiruvananthapuram, demanding the lifting of ban on recruitment and withdrawal of new tax hike.
“PARTISANSHIP”, at its broadest, writes eminent historian E J Hobsbawm, “may merely be another way of denying the possibility of a purely objective and value-free science, a proposition from which few historians, social scientists and philosophers would today totally dissent.
THE Communist Party of India (Marxist) is observing the 50th anniversary of its formation. The Party that was born at the Seventh Congress held in Kolkata (from October 31 to November 7, 1964) has advanced facing many trials and tribulations. On this occasion, we remember and pay homage to the thousands of comrades who became martyrs for the cause of the Party and the movement.
THE deadly cocktail of imposing greater economic burdens on the people, on the one hand, and sharpening communal polarisation, on the other, continues to be intensified under this Modi-led NDA government.
Much is being made about a fleeting decline in the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), according to the data released by the union commerce ministry, which shows that the annual rate of inflation, based on the monthly WPI stood at 2.38 percent in September 2014 compared to 3.74 percent in the previous month and 7.05 percent during the corresponding month of the previous year.
THE 13th Andhra Pradesh (AP) AIDWA conference was held successfully in Vijayawada on September 26-28, 2014. Prior to the delegate session, on September 26 a massive public meeting was held in Vijayawada town. The public meeting was presided over by AIDWA AP state president Karusala Subbaravamma. Brinda Karat national leader of AIDWA addressing the public meeting questioned whether we lived in a civilised country in view of deteriorating levels of women’s security where very young girls to very old women were being sexually attacked.
THE ceasefire agreement between the central government and the Eastern Ukrainian rebel forces on September 5 was viewed by the governments in Moscow and Kiev as a definitive step forward to end the vicious civil war that had gripped the East European country. At the negotiations in Minsk, the Ukrainian government was represented by a former President, Leonid Kuchma. Aleksandr Zakharchenko represented the rebel factions from the East.