THE political campaign of the Peoples’ Welfare Front – the alternative alliance comprising the MDMK, CPI(M), CPI and VCK – has entered the fourth phase.All the four phases of the campaign have reflected a sense of camaraderie and enthusiasm.Going to the assembly polls on May 16, Tamilnadu may have to face a six cornered contest.The ruling AIADMK is mired in infighting. This, according to political observers in the state, may erode the huge support base of the Party.

ON the call of various national women’s organisations – AIDWA, AIPWA, JWP, Purogami Mahila Sanghatan, Pragatisheel Mahila Sanghatan, Swastika Mahila Samiti, Anhad, Janwadi Mahila Samiti, Delhi, Janwadi Mahila Samiti, Haryana, and Sakriya – hundreds of citizens participated in the peoples march in Murthal on March 12. They demanded constitution of an SIT by the Punjab and Haryana High Court to investigate the cases of gang rapes reported in media on Murthal National Highway No: 1 during the Jat reservation agitation.

THERE was a time when India had one of the finest statistical systems in the developing world. No matter how one interpreted the statistics that came out of that system, one could take the figures themselves as reasonably correct. This alas is no longer true. We now have GDP estimates which the Economic Survey of the union government itself considers unreliable. And some of the figures given in the latest Economic Survey are quite bizarre.Take the manufacturing sector.

Q: In the 'Origin of Family, Private Property and the State', Engels argued that love or marital relationship between individuals must be completely their private affair and just as in primitive communism, in future communist society also, it should be possible to easily end a relationship from either side and without the interference of public courts. After the Russian revolution, Lenin said that henceforth the so-called 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' children would be equal. In western world today, being formal partners, ie, live-in relationship has become very common.

AS soon as the sting video of a new news website Naradanews.com uploaded its coverage on the TMC leaders of West Bengal, all hell broke loose. Mathew Samuel, the chief of the website has put out the story as to how this investigation was conceived in the aftermath of the milestone political change in West Bengal after the 2011 assembly elections where the Left Front was dislodged from office after record breaking 34 years.