THE RSS-BJP drive to bring universities and higher educational institutions under its political-ideological domination is in full swing. The latest attack on Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and its student community was almost predictable given the recent events in other educational institutions which come under the purview of the central government. The JNU has become a prime target as it stands for all that is antithetical to the RSS-Hindutva forces.

THE execution of the prominent Saudi Shia cleric, Ayatollah Sheikh Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, by the Saudi authorities on January 1 along with 47 others, has led to a dangerous exacerbation of tensions between the Saudi monarchy and Iran. The execution of al-Nimr, whose only crime was calling for a peaceful struggle against the authoritarian regime in Riyadh, has further accentuated the dangerous sectarian divide in West Asia. Last year, 157 people were put to death in Saudi Arabia.

THE 16th biennial conference of Natun Sahitya Parishad, a progressive literary organisation of Assam, was held from January 8 to 10 at Manikpur in Bongaigaon district. The conference upheld the view of democratic consciousness and human values with the main slogan of confronting neo-liberal economic policies and the sinister design of casteism and communalism by literary activities.

THE Central Executive Committee of SFI, in a statement issued on February 6, has expressed deep concern and anger over the continuing developments in Indian universities which leads to the suicide of students one after another.   A young scholar has ended his life leaving another dark reminder how the universities have become effectively a killing field for the students and young scholars of our country under the thriving neo-liberal saffron raj of Modi.

AS I write, roughly 10.3 million workers return home as the sun sets on 4.9 lakh worksites across the length and breadth of this vast country under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. About 23 percent are Scheduled Castes, and 17 percent are Scheduled Tribes. With a failed monsoon and drought behind them, and fall in the growth rate of real wages, this employment and wages could offer the much needed succor from the consequent misery and even check distress out-migration.