ALMOST everybody has a theory on health and very often commonly held beliefs that underline such theories are irrational and unscientific. People will, however, cling to their pet beliefs with the argument that they know something works (or doesn’t work) from personal experience. Beliefs and practices are socially constructed and change over time as material conditions change.Thus, for example, in large parts of Eastern India it is believed that when a person is ill a change in the staple cereal (from rice to wheat) is beneficial.

Tapas Sutradhar, The Fourth MartyrEVEN after 100 days of the new government assuming office in Tripura, physical attacks on the Left continue unabated. The latest victim of this spree of murders is Comrade Sutradhar. In the night of June 18th, Comrade Tapas Sutradhar, CPI(M) Panisagar subdivisional committee member,  member of AIKS state committee and a former member of North Tripura Zilla Parishad was brutally murdered  when he was on the way back home after attending a marriage ceremony.  He was attacked by the BJP-IPFT goons and killed with a sharp weapon.

THE Jallianwala Bagh Massacre 1919, Centenary Committee, on June 19, demanded a formal apology, from the serving British prime minister, in their parliament.A campaign was initiated by the Indian Workers’ Association Great Britain in 2016, demanding from David Cameron, former prime minister, to repeat the same words in parliament that were written by him in the visitor’s book in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, on February 2013.Representatives of various supporting organisations, ordinary people cutting across religious and linguistic lines, the diaspora of Indians from all corners of United Kin

ONE of the major planks of the BJP campaign in 2014 was that the economy had been reduced to shambles under the UPA - growth was flagging, the rupee had lost ground against the dollar, exports were sluggish and loans from banks to industry were increasingly turning bad. Modi, it was declared, would come and wave his magic wand and turn all this around. India would become the fastest growing economy in the world, the rupee would gain ground against other currencies, exports would boom and investors, both foreign and domestic, flock to make India a manufacturing hub.

A DELEGATION of the Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch comprising of Subhashini Ali (vice-president) and Nathu Prasad (joint secretary) met the president of India on June 27 and handed over a memorandum giving details of the reign of terror unleashed against dalits in many parts of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan in the aftermath of April 2.  The governments are acting in a vindictive manner. While more than 10 dalits were killed during the bandh, no one responsible for their deaths including members of the Sangh Parivar who were photographed openly using firearms on the 2nd hav