ON April 8, 2024, the CPI(M) began its election campaign for the Hingoli Lok Sabha seat in Maharashtra with an enthusiastic convention of more than 100 of its main activists. They came from the three districts of Nanded and Hingoli in the Marathwada region, and Yavatmal in the Vidarbha region. Parts of these three districts come in this constituency. The voting date for this seat is April 26. The CPI(M) had fought this Lok Sabha seat once earlier in 2014.
THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions, in a statement issued on April 12, has expressed extreme grief at the passing away of Comrade Neelima Maitra, veteran leader of the trade union movement and a frontline organiser of the working women and scheme workers’ movement, the anganwadi sector, in particular. She was 92 years old and breathed her last after prolonged ailment on April 12, 2024 at a nursing home in Kolkata.Comrade Neelima Maitra’s political-organisational life spread over more than six decades.
THE recent decade has attracted concerns about two potential trends of relocation of production and labour. One relates to increasing wages in the developing countries triggering a new wave of use of robots in production and the other is more geopolitical in nature referring to possibilities of relocating manufacturing activities outside China.Large reserve of cheap labour in the global south led to relocation of production in the developing countries and might have postponed large scale robotisation of production in advanced economies.
IN a statement issued on April 17, the All India Kisan Sabha, said that the BJP's 2024 election manifesto, titled 'Modi ki Guarantee,' neglects crucial issues such as the implementation of MSP at C2+50 per cent as recommended by the Swaminathan Commission, guaranteed procurement, farmer suicides, and loan waivers. This manifesto is a clear admission of failure of implementing BJP’s last two manifestos in 2014 and 2019.
ON April 7, 2024, the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) Maharashtra unit organised a large and enthusiastic Right to Minimum Support Price (MSP) Vidarbha level convention at Wardha. It was attended by over 800 farmers from Wardha, Yavatmal, Amravati, Buldana, Nagpur, and Gadchiroli districts of the Vidarbha region. Exactly a month ago, on March 7, 2024, the AIKS Maharashtra unit had organised a similar 1000-strong Marathwada level farmers convention at Majalgaon in Beed district.
THE policies and measures adopted by the Modi led BJP government are focussed on facilitating loot and plunder of the nation and intensified exploitation of the workers by the big corporates, domestic and foreign, camouflaged under slogans like ‘Make in India’ and Atmanirbhar Bharat. While the government also claims that these are meant for job creation, the reality is otherwise.
THE countries of the global north are awash with weapons systems that have the capacity to blow up the world many times over. Not only do the countries in the global north have armies that are lethal and dangerous, but they are the largest exporters of weapons to the rest of the world, fuelling conflicts that could be settled by diplomacy. The larger the arsenal of weapons, the greater the confidence that they will be the arbiter of disputes – and so, even petty problems that can be resolved by negotiations escalate rapidly into war.
SITARAM Yechury, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) wrote a letter to Rajiv Kumar, chief election commissioner, Election Commission of India April 8, 2024, on the IT notices served to the CPI(M) Thrissur district committee on its bank account.
THESE days I often think back to my first association with the anti-colonial national movement. In the 1940s, I was a teen-ager in school. This was in Pune, where the action was, at that time. We would rush through homework and go to the prayer meetings of Gandhi. A foundational change was expected in Indian society. We, who had for centuries been subjects of diverse kingdoms, and then of a colonial state, were slowly mutating into citizens of an independent nation-state.