NOBODY can claim that the rate of growth of agricultural production, especially of foodgrain production, has been higher in the neoliberal period than during the years of dirigiste development that preceded it; it may have been somewhat lower but let us agree that it is certainly no higher. On the other hand the rate of growth of Gross Domestic Product is estimated to be significantly higher; several economists have argued that this growth rate is exaggerated, but again let us agree that taking the period as a whole it has been noticeably higher.

THE All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), in a statement issued on March 4, has congratulated the fighting rubber farmers for their resolute determination in the face of exploitation by the tyre cartel. The cartelisation in the Indian tyre sector is an entrenched anti-competitive practice that denies a fair price to the natural rubber farmers while looting consumers.

A DELEGATION from the CPI(M), including Brinda Karat (Polit Bureau member), Kishan Parikh (secretary, Rajasthan state committee), Sumitra Chopra (state secretariat member), and Raisa (district secretary), visited the family of one-month-old Alishda on March 4, who was killed by police brutality on March 2, 2025.The incident occurred at 6 am on March 2 at Raghunathgarh village in Alwar district of Rajasthan when a group of policemen forcefully broke down the outer wall of Imran’s modest home. When Razida, the mother, opened the door, she was manhandled and dragged outside by male officers.

THE communal poison regularly injected into the body politic by the Sangh Parivar and its growing numbers of supporters among common people and the administration has been responsible for numerous attacks on Muslims.  Most tragically, recent incidents have shown that children and infants are now being made the targets of these attacks.In Malvan, a small town in Sindhdurg district of Maharashtra, a young Muslim boy of 15 was apprehended by the police, his parents arrested and their small scrap shop was bulldozed by the municipal corporation on February 25.  All this was done on the basis of

ON March 1, 2025, the 24th Maharashtra State Conference of the CPI(M) concluded at Selu, Parbhani district, in the Marathwada region, with the unanimous election of a 50-member state committee which has 12 women (24 per cent), as against 9 women (18 per cent) earlier. The new state committee unanimously elected a 15-member state secretariat which has two women, as against one earlier. It also unanimously elected 47-year-old Ajit Nawale as the new state secretary.