THERE is stench all around us. Dirt piling up, people urinating on the roads and defecating in the open – all these continue to offend our sensibilities. So, suddenly when there came a prime minister who stood upon the ramparts of the Red Fort to address all of us, on the issue confronting all of us, we are all more than happy. Here comes the doer! Come tomorrow, we need not be closing our nostrils when we move around! More than all this, we need not be ashamed of our roads, cities or our country. Particularly, before foreigners. Doer, he is, deliver he will.

MORE than 20,000 people from the tehsils of Dahanu, Talasari, Vikramgad, Palghar, Jawhar, Mokhada and Wada from Palghar district and Shahapur tehsil from Thane district marched under the banner of the CPI(M) and the AARM to the district collector’s office at Palghar on October 16, 2015 to castigate the BJP-led governments at the centre and in the state and with a 21-point charter of burning demands of various sections of the working people. Adivasis were an overwhelming section in the march, and nearly half of them were women.

THE efforts of the Hindu fundamentalist forces to do cultural policing in the name of cow-protection faced a major setback on in Delhi after Kerala House's staff-run restaurant, Smrudhi, re-introduced beef on their menu.
The Delhi Police, which acted on the basis of 'information received over phone that cow meat is served in the restaurant' and sent a team to raid the place was caught on the wrong foot for dancing to the tune of fundamentalist forces.

JHARKHAND has recorded highest number of communal conflicts during last year.  After Jamshedpur violence in July 2015, again Jharkhand simmered with tension on October 24, 2015. Communal violence occurred in Hazaribagh, Palamu and Latehar districts.Violence and vandalism are also reported from Chhatarpur (Palamu district) and Latehar which started on October 23 and spilled over the next day. People from both the communities were injured.The latest communal clashes sparked off during Dusshera and Muharrum festivals which coincided this year.

TWO esteemed scholar-activists of Maharashtra, Dr Narendra Dabholkar and Comrade Govind Pansare were shot dead in the last two years in almost identical circumstances. It is widely known that extremist Hindutva outfits like Sanathan Sanstha are behind these killings. Very recently another outspoken scholar M M Kalburgi was also shot dead at his home in Karnataka in similar circumstances.