Workers Convention Takes Resolve for Success of 2ND September Strike

A CONVENTION, organised by the Co-ordination Committee of Workers’ and Employees, was held on August 2 at the Union Club Hall in Ranchi. CITU vice president and former MP Basudev Acharya inaugurated the convention.

Left Parties Protest VHP Bid to Fuel Communal Tension in Jamshedpur

CPI(M) and other Left parties have strongly opposed the attempts of VHP, Bajrang Dal and other Hindutva organisations to fuel communal tension in Jamshedpur and other parts of Jharkhand.

Capitalism, Corruption and Bourgeois Politics

The monsoon session of Parliament has been disrupted because the BJP-in-government and the Congress-in-opposition, along with other parties, have raised the issue of corruption in public life. Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan is alleged to be involved in a humongous scam regarding pre-medical and job recruitment examinations which has so far claimed the lives of 45 people associated with it, and in this “Vyapam” scam, millions of rupees were earned through corrupt methods by politicians and bureaucrats of Madhya Pradesh.

Right to Education: Momentous Victory for Parents in Bombay High Court

THE haughty BJP-Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra had to eat a humble pie before the Bombay High Court last month. The government had to withdraw its order cancelling all admissions to pre-primary classes made as per the entry point dictum of the RTE Act. On July 24, the Additional Government Pleader had to state before the high court bench that the state had withdrawn the Government Resolution (GR), dated April 30, and went on to table the new GR of July 23 issued in its place.

Flood Exposes Mamata’s Governance

MAMATA Banerjee government in West Bengal has failed miserably to discharge even preliminary duties to reach to flood affected people in the state. Incessant rain, compounded by cyclonic weather caused havoc in the entire southern Bengal from the last week of July.More than 65 lakh people across 53 municipalities and 18,000 villages across 12 districts have been affected by the floods. Around ten lakh hectares of agricultural land have been inundated. Thousands of people were forced to leave their houses and communication was snapped. Waterlogged tracks disrupted train services.

Seminar on Democracy & Corporate Politics Held in Guntur

THE BJP led government is steeped in corruption within one year of its governance. We are making efforts to launch a broad movement against the BJP government’s corruption, said Prakash Karat, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, at a seminar conducted by the Party in Guntur. He called upon the Left and democratic forces to unite for this.

Modi government has doled out false assurances to the public and upon assuming power it failed to implement any of its main assurances. Moreover, it is doing away with welfare schemes and is attacking the common man, Karat explained.

SECC Excludes More Than It Includes Amidst High Rural Distress

COMMISSIONED by the UPA government in 2011, the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) was to collect data on caste, urban and rural socio-economic status. The preceding BPL census was undertaken in 2002, which collected information on 13 indicators for every rural household. Households were selected on the basis of their total marks, the cut-off being the total marks at which the number of BPL households in a state equalled its poverty estimate as determined by the Planning Commission. This process was problematic, procedurally and conceptually.

Human DNA Profiling Bill: Invasion of Privacy at a Grand Scale

POLITICAL activists, who are part of a peaceful demonstration that the government declares as unlawful, may soon find themselves as part of a massive database that the government wishes to construct. The database, called the ‘National DNA Data Bank’ will contain the DNA profiles for a range of Indian citizens and ostensibly will be used to tackle crime and to trace or identify people for various reasons. You are likely to be part of the database if you are in minor violation of the Motor Vehicle Act.

World Recession Set to Worsen

MORE than seven years after the world capitalist crisis began, not only is there no sign of any recovery from it, but the prospects appear even bleaker today than ever before. In fact, while the advanced capitalist world continues to remain mired in crisis, it is now spreading across the globe, even to countries like India and China that had appeared initially to have escaped its impact. India’s GDP growth rate is slowing down; what is more, the manufacturing sector continues to witness almost absolute stagnation.

‘Virtually All of Death Row Convicts Are Poor’

LADY Justice is depicted as blindfolded, but is she blind and without any bias? Not always. A recent empirical study of convicts on death row confirms the fact that the capital punishment in India is reserved for the poor and the marginalised. While the poor get gallows, the rich mostly escape. According to a study, three-fourths of those given death penalty in the past one-and-a-half decades belonged to the backward classes and religious minorities.

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