CPI(M) Polit Bureau has issued the following statement on September 6IN the by-elections to two assembly constituencies in Tripura – Boxanagar and Dhanpur – on September 5, there was total rigging under the direct supervision of the BJP state government.  An extraordinary situation of terror was created. Polling agents of the CPI(M) were physically assaulted and prevented from discharging their duties.

FIFTY years ago, on September 11, 1973, the US succeeded in orchestrating a coup against the democratically elected Salvador Allende’s government in Chile. The Pinochet dictatorship foisted on the people assassinated thousands of communists, socialists, workers, artists and all those who were found to be actively supporting Allende. This violent terror was accompanied by the implementation of neoliberal policies, guided by the ‘Chicago boys’.

THE Delhi Union of Journalists, in a statement issued on September 5, has severely condemned the filing of an FIR by the Imphal police against the Editors’ Guild of India (EGI) for its fact-finding report on the violent conflict in Manipur. A three-member team of veteran journalists had visited Manipur recently to examine how media organisations had been reporting the ongoing ethnic conflict. The FIR has been filed against the team members Seema Guha, Sanjay Kapoor and Bharat Bhushan as well as the president of the Guild, Seema Mustafa.

THE chip wars between the US and China show no sign of abating as the US tries to stop the flow of advanced chips – sub 7 nm chips, graphical processor units (GPUs), 5G chipsets – and the lithographic machines that manufacture such chips. The US had started with sanctions that made it impossible for Huawei to manufacture its top-of-the-range processors at the heart of the 5G mobile phones. The US had then progressively widened the sanctions to advanced chip manufacturing lithographic machines and high-end computing processors, the GPUs from Nvidia.

MARTYRS ' Day was observed in Kolkata on August 31, in memory of the martyrs of the 1959 food movement that had culminated into a rally of thousands of hunger marchers who went to Esplanade, Kolkata, on August 31 to demand adequate food for all and were brutally lathi-charged by the police without any warning and without any provocation whatsoever, leaving 80 dead.Since then, August 31 has been observed as Martyrs Day on a massive scale every year.  The Left Front announced a meeting on August 31 this year at Esplanade in memory of the martyrs.