HARSEV Bains, was heading back to London. In Delhi, back after a short visit to his ancestral village in Punjab, Bains, the secretary of the Indian Workers’ Association, Great Britain said “drugs” are going to be a major issue in these polls. That was much before the election campaign had actually begun in the state. Even for a casual observer of the political scene in Punjab, like this writer, the development was not surprising. The state had been plagued by this menace for long and it was high time that the issue was addressed.
THROUGH a statement issued from New Delhi on June 2, 2014, the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) took serious note of the media reports suggesting that the BJP government is likely to go ahead with the implementation of the recommendations of Madhav Gadgil led Western Ghats ecological expert panel (WGEEP). The AIKS cautioned the government against rushing through implementation of the said recommendations without addressing the serious concerns agitating the minds of the people in the Western Ghats region.
ON May 31, 2014, several mass organisations including the Democratic Teachers Front (DTF), Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), Janwadi Lekhak Sangh (JLS), Janwadi Mahila Samiti (JMS), Jan Natya Manch (JNM) and Students Federation of India (SFI) staged a protest demonstration at the Uttar Pradesh Bhawan against the horrific gang rape and murder of two teenage girls in Badaun district. More than 100 protesters gathered near the Gyarah Murti and marched towards the UP Bhawan, raising angry slogans and demanding justice and stringent action against the culprits.
THE Indian economy is clearly afflicted by stagflation. According to the provisional estimates of GDP released recently by the Central Statistical Organisation, growth in 2013-14 was, at 4.7 per cent, not very much higher than the 4.5 per cent of 2012-13. That rate is disappointing because it includes a negative rate of growth of manufacturing. Point-on-point consumer price inflation, on the other hand, was at a higher 8.6 per cent in April relative to 8.3 per cent in March. This definitely adds up to a form of stagflation.
AN investigative report by the Associated Press (AP) in April has revealed the details of a covert US programme code named the “ZunZuneo project.” The programme, started at the end of the last decade, was aimed at destabilising the Cuban government. According to the report, the project named after a Cuban word for the call of a humming bird, was launched by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to set up a Twitter style social media.
JOGO bonito, the beautiful game, (football) – “a liberation of flesh and spirit, a thing of soaring fantasy, the forbidden adventure of freedom” (Galeano) is back. Not that it ever left us. It is now back as a carnival – the biggest sporting event on the planet – the World Cup. And it comes with its set of controversies. Seven years since it was awarded the hosting rights, Brazil is slogging to get dressed up for the big day.
DR MAYA Angelou, the celebrated poet, writer, singer, and actress died at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in the United States on May 28, 2014. She was 86. The literary giant, most known for her autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and Phenomenal Woman, a collection of poems, was one of the foremost African-American writers and thinkers of our times and one of the first black women in the United States to enjoy mainstream literary success.
A DELEGATION of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) comprising of Jagmati Sangwan, general secretary, Sheba Farooqui, secretary accompanied by Rajeev Shant and Banne Ali of the Uttar Pradesh All India Agricultural Workers Union had visited Katara Saadatganj village in Badaun district of UP on May 30, 2014, where the horrible incident of gang-rape and murder of two minor OBC girls occurred on May 27, 2014.
