OCTOBER 10, 2017 was observed all over Thane-Palghar district as the 72nd Martyrs’ Day and also as the 21st death anniversary of the legendary leader of the Adivasi Revolt, former CPI(M) Central Committee member and former AIKS president, Comrade Godavari Parulekar. This day is observed every year in Thane-Palghar to renew the struggle.It was on this day in 1945 that the police of the British regime, in collusion with the landlords, had fired on a gathering of over 30,000 adivasis and had killed five of them, including Comrade Jethya Gangad of Vevji village in Talasari tehsil.

IN a sharp counter to the BJP Sangh Parivar’s campaign, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the state has been targeted as it champions the values of secularism, socialism and democracy.  He was speaking at a function organised by the Delhi Union of Journalists in the national capital on ‘Democracy in danger: unethical reporting/ attacks on independent journalism and journalists’ on October 15, at Kerala House. The chief minister said slogans like ‘Love Jehad’ have been used to disrupt the state’s centuries old communal harmony but the RSS will not succeed in its game plan.

CPI(M) held a march against the killing of its activists by the RSS-BJP goons in Kerala. Hundreds of activists of Communist Party of India (Marxist) led by general secretary Sitaram Yechury and Polit Bureau members Md Salim, Subhashini Ali, Raghavulu, Central Committee members and Party activists, marched from Delhi state office of CPI(M) to BJP headquarters protesting against the killing of CPI(M) cadres by RSS-BJP in Kerala. Protests against RSS terror in Kerala were held all over the country.

VETERAN leader of Communist movement in West Bengal, Comrade Nakul Mahato passed away on September 20, at the age of 93. Comrade Nakul Mahato was born in 1924 at Purulia, the district which became his area of work and source of all passions as well. He was involved with Radical Party in the initial stage of life. He was the first graduate from JK College in Purulia. Thorough many struggles, including the struggle to include Manbhum with Bengal, he joined the Communist Party in 1957. He played a very important role in developing the peasant and communist movement in the district.

THE Global Hunger Index brought out annually by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has just been published for 2017. The fact that India occupies the 100th rank among the 119 nations specifically studied by IFPRI (for whom hunger is a problem), with only two other Asian countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, below India in the rankings, has attracted some attention in the media.