TENS of thousands of people, in some estimates a million, thronged the Brigade Parade Ground on February 3 at the call of the Left Front, to assert alternative policies and politics. One of the largest ever mobilisations in Kolkata’s historic ground threw up a challenge to the communal and political polarisation in the state, triggering a new stage of confidence as well as struggle.The rally came as a follow up of series of struggles of different sections of toiling people and huge rallies and padajatras in the state.

ON January 29, the AIDWA Kerala state committee had a review meeting of the organisation’s work in the broader campaign for the historic Women’s Wall on January 1 this year. Some of the experiences and the lessons have a wider significance for progressive movements that seek to challenge and change the unequal status quo.As is known the decision for such a Womens’ Wall programme was taken at the initial meeting called by the chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

THE working committee of the All India Fishers and Fisheries Workers’ Federation met in Hingalganj in North 24 Paraganas district of West Bengal on January 22, 2019. More than 40 working committee members and invitees from seven states including Tripura, Kerala, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka participated in the meeting. Meetings of the subcommittees on marine, inland and allied sectors, constituted by the AIFFWF working committee met prior to this meeting and discussed the issues of fishers and fisheries workers in those sectors.

CPI(M)  Polit Bureau has issued the following statement on January 29THE Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) expresses its strong disapproval of the petition moved by the central government in the Supreme Court to ‘remove the status quo on the non-disputed land’ that it had acquired in Ayodhya.  It wants to hand over this land to the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas that had been set up by the VHP to undertake the construction of the Ram temple on the site. In 1993, the Supreme Court had ordered that the status quo be maintained on 67 acres of land that had been acquired.  The centre n

A FRESH wave of nuclear arms race is underway. The discourse is fast veering towards giving legitimacy to the use of strategic nuclear weapons in a limited way in a battle field. As usual America is leading the demand for such legitimacy, followed by Russia, to make the war more brutal and the world more dangerous. The nuclear silos are being broken down to integrate the nuclear with the non-nuclear military options.