WEST BENGAL: People Protest Loot of their Money

WHILE people are facing acute distress due to demonetisation, the back to back arrest of two TMC MPs has once again brought to surface the massive loot of peoples’ money through chit funds. Sudip Banerjee, TMC leader in Lok Sabha and Tapas Paul, film star turned MP were arrested by the CBI in the Rose Valley scam. Every day more and more facts are surfacing, proving that the ultimate beneficiary of the chit fund plunder was the ruling party of West Bengal.Left parties have come out in the streets to protest against the demonetisation and for the logical conclusion of the CBI investigation.

Central Committee Communique

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) met at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala on January 6-8, 2017. It has issued the following statement on January 8.DEMONETISATIONThe demonetisation of the 1000 and 500 rupee notes announced by the prime minister on November 8 has caused immense loss to a large part of our economy plunging crores of people into agony and loss of livelihood. The prime minister’s appeal for a fifty day time frame after which he assured things will come back to normalcy is over and normalcy is far from being reached.

Drought Situation faced by Southern States of India

Resolution adopted at the Central Committee Meeting held on January 6-8, 2017 at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.THE south Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, parts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and Union Territory of Puducherry are facing severe drought.Tamil Nadu is facing a serious drought ever known in the history of the state. Except Chennai, the whole of Tamil Nadu is in the grip of worst drought. Both the monsoons – south west and north east failed causing a deficit of rainfall to the tune of more than 62 percent. Lakhs and lakhs of acres of cultivable lands rema

Gnanpeeth Awardee M T Vasudevan Nair Becomes Sangh Parivar’s Latest Target

GNANPEETH award-wining author M T Vasudevan Nair has become the latest target of Sangh Parivar in Kerala for his stand against demonetisation. Nair, the most popular novelist and national award-winning film script writer, was threatened by BJP’s state general secretary A N Radhakrishnan. The BJP leader warned that Nair should remain silent on issues like demonetisation as he has no locus standi in reacting on such matters.

Initiatives to Strengthen Kerala’s Public Health Care System

TO safeguard the interests of the common people, the government of Kerala has designed innovative policies to be followed in the public health sector. The standard of health services in Kerala has reached an impressive level compared to the rest of the states in India, which is also on par with that of the developed world. The state had pioneered universal health care services in the country and its palliative care service has largely been applauded. Kerala is also the only state to have a formal palliative care policy in the country.

The Demonetisation Fiasco

THE demonetisation of 86 percent of the currency of the country, a virtually unprecedented measure anywhere in the world, has brought immense hardship to the working people of the country, and will damage their living standards permanently (since the Modi government plans not to replace the entire value of the demonetised notes by printing new ones).

South Korea: President Park in a Soup

A SCANDAL of humongous proportions has hit the South Korean president Park Gyeun-hye and plunged domestic politics into turmoil. The calls for the resignation of the South Korean president are getting louder by the day. Public support for her is now in single digits. The South Korean capital, Seoul has been witnessing huge protests since the scandal erupted in full force at the end of October. One of the biggest protest rallies the country has seen was held on November 12. People from all over the country congregated in Seoul demanding that the president immediately tender her resignation.

Privatisation of Public Services Hurts Poor, Creates Inequality

EFFORTS to privatise public goods and services have helped fuel an increasingly unequal society, says a new report by a US-based research and policy centre.The report, “How privatisation increases inequality,” examines the ways in which the insertion of private interests into the provision of public goods and services hurts poor individuals and families, and people of colour in the United States, a model that is fast spreading across the world, including in developing countries, such as India.As India embarks on pushing direct benefits transfer (DBT) in a bid to plug leakages in the distrib

One Country, One Election: Profoundly Undemocratic

THE BJP national executive which met last week has called Prime Minister Narendra Modi's proposal for simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state legislatures "another path breaking initiative". This is hardly surprising considering that the BJP election manifesto had called for simultaneous elections.Modi has put out this proposal as part of a package for electoral reforms. Last September, President Pranab Mukherjee had endorsed the idea.

On Land Issues

Resolution adopted at the Central Committee Meeting held on January 6-8, 2017 at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.THE Communist Party of India (Marxist) expresses its solidarity and extends its support to the farmers who are struggling against illegal and forcible land acquisition in many states subverting the beneficial provisions of 2013 Land Acquisition Act.After the assumption of power by BJP and its allies at the centre, the attempts to subvert the existing land reform, land acquisition, land lease and land use laws gathered pace.

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