ON the martyrdom day of Mahatma Gandhi,  January 30, AIKS and CITU organised one-day 'upwas' (Fast) in support of farmers' agitation in front of Gandhiji's statue in Ranchi.In the state capital, activists of AIKS and CITU along with mass organisations and with other social activists took out rally with raising different slogans like 'bapu amar rahe( long live Mahatma Gandhi), inquilab zindabad, bapu hum sharminda hai tere qatil zinda hai( Gandhi, we are ashamed that your murderers are still alive), teeno krishi kanoon wapas lo (take back the three farm laws) etc.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) met online on January 30-31, 2021.  It has issued the following statement on January 31KISAN STRUGGLEThe Central Committee hailed the continuing massive kisan struggle demanding the repeal of the retrograde farm laws and the legislation of MSP for all crops as the legal right of all farmers in the country. The Central Committee extended its full solidarity and support to this struggle.The mammoth Republic Day tractor parade saw the participation of many lakhs of farmers in over a lakh

SUCH fascistic State repression has never been witnessed in India for the last several decades. In the wake of the BJP-RSS government-sponsored conspiracy of violence on Republic Day, that was outlined in these columns last week, the Modi regime has begun a massive crackdown on the historic farmers’ struggle, which will soon complete 75 days. The government and its police have now turned the three farmers’ protest sites at Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur into open jails. The ‘annadatas’ of our country are being treated as foreign invaders.

AFTER the global Covid-19 pandemic exposed the dismal state of India’s public health system, one would have thought that the government would have learnt some lessons.  India’s public health expenditure is one of the lowest in the world and stood at 1.3 per cent of GDP in 2019.The Modi government pushed ahead with privatisation of health services in a big way – something which began with the liberalisation policies in 1991.  A health system developed where there is a dominant private sector – corporate-run hospitals, private nursing homes, clinics and diagnostic centres.  Most of them charg

EVEN before taking office, Jo Biden, the new American president, has announced a rescue package of $1.9 trillion, of which as much as $1 trillion will be in the form simply of transfers to the working people. Since the estimated US GDP was $20.8 trillion in 2020, the size of Biden’s rescue package comes to almost 10 per cent of current US GDP. This is on top of the rescue package, again amounting to 10 per cent of GDP, that Trump had announced some time ago in the context of the pandemic.