THE union budget for 2018-19 sets a new record for cynical dissimulation. To be sure there is a certain amount of “window dressing” in all budgets, but the announcement of fantabulous schemes with scarcely a paisa earmarked for them, as has happened this year, is quite unprecedented in the annals of budget-making in India.Consider for instance the much-hyped “world’s largest healthcare programme” announced in this budget, which is supposed to provide insurance cover for up to Rs 5 lakhs per family to 10 crore families constituting 40 per cent of India’s population.

A protest was organised on 5th February in Delhi against the anti people budget of the Modi government. Comrade Md Salim, CPI(M) MP and Polit Bureau Member addressed the gathering along with comrades K. M. Tewari and others.The speakers said that this is nothing but a jumla budget. Nothing in this budget will provide relief to common people and it is a budget to benefit the big corporates and capitalists.

A NEW political force is born in the state of Telangana. This force is Bahujana Left Front. The creation of Bahujana Left Front (BLF) has now become the topic of discussion in the arena of politics. Bahujans mean all those people across the society who endure economic exploitation and social oppression. The formation of a political front with an ideological foundation of uniting all these people is a welcome and hopeful development. Times and generations have changed, but still bahujans are treated as vote banks and not as human beings.

IN his Preface to the Economic Survey, 2017-18, Arvind Subramanian, the chief economic adviser to the ministry of finance wrote “The (pink) color of this year's survey cover was chosen as a symbol of support for the growing movement to end violence against women, which spans continents. Addressing the deep societal meta-preference in favour of sons, and empowering women with education and reproductive and economic agency are critical challenges for the Indian economy”.

A memorial meeting for CPI(M) Central Committee member and Tripura Left Front chairman Khagen Das was organised at Rabindra Shatabarshiki Bhavan in Agartala on January 24. Das died in the early hours of January 20 in Kolkata where he had participated in the meeting of the Central Committee.