THIS week has seen a very well choreographed and orchestrated campaign to woo international finance capital to India. Prime Minister Modi seeking to realise his “Make in India” campaign was physically omnipresent at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit 2015. PM Modi has made a clear shift from the slogan of “Made in India” that he thundered from the Red Fort in his first address to the nation on Independence Day to the slogan of “Make in India” that he advanced at a yet another choreographed event at the Madison Square Gardens in New York on his visit to the UN.

The following is the statement issued by the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) on January 8:

THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) congratulates the coal workers all over the country for their heroic two days’ strike action in all the coal mines and establishments spread over around 40 districts braving police repressions and attacks by the contractor-mafia combine. The strike completely paralysed operations in most of the coal mines under Coal India Ltd and Singareni Collieries Ltd.

INDIA, the ‘Republic of Hunger’, has gone from bad to worse in hunger, and the fight to save the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, which provides supplementary nutrition to nearly 10 crore beneficiaries is very important for the country’s future, said Prof. Utsa Patnaik. In a very lucid manner, she explained the plight of the people under the neo-liberal policies to the audience who were mainly the anganwadi union leaders from different states. She said that their work in the anganwadis and their fight in the union is important for the future of the country.

THE Russian President, Vladimir Putin was in Delhi in the second week of December to participate in the annual India-Russia summit that has become an annual event since 2000. President Putin and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had signed the historic Declaration on Strategic Partnership that year. Though the Russian president was in the Indian capital for only a day, the 2014 summit has yielded a raft of substantive agreements.

THE Students’ Federation of India (SFI), Maharashtra state committee led a month-long statewide protest of students in the Industrial Technical Institutes (ITIs) with the main demand to scrap the negative marking system which was newly introduced for ITI students and which led to thousands of students failing in their examinations. More than 25,000 students successfully participated in these SFI-led protests in 20 districts of Maharashtra. It must be remembered that ITI students form part of the future working class of our country.