INTERNATIONALLY acclaimed dramatist and protagonist of ‘Theatre of the Earth’ Heisnam Kanhailal died on October 6 in his famous drama institute Kalakshetra in the outskirts of Imphal, Manipur. He was 75 and had been suffering from cancer. He was a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He is survived by his wife Heisnam Sabitri and son Tomba.  Kanhailal was born on January 17, 1941 into a poor family at Keisamthong Thangajam, Leirak, Imphal. His father H Pishak Singh was a follower of legendary Communist leader Hizam Irabat Singh.

THE World Bank and the IMF have started a new trend of late, of taking “progressive” positions in their publications even while insisting on the same old “conditionalities” in policy negotiations with particular countries. In accordance with this new trend these institutions have now got concerned with issues of poverty and inequality; and the World Bank has just brought out what is supposed to be the first of a series of annual publications tracking progress towards poverty removal and curtailment of inequality. This publication is called Poverty and Shared Prosperity.

THE 50,000-strong statewide adivasi struggle at Wada in Palghar district on October 3-4, 2016 was a mass struggle to remember and cherish. The earlier one lakh-strong two-day statewide peasant siege under AIKS leadership at Nashik on March 29-30, 2016, on the four burning issues of peasants – loan-waiver, remunerative prices, drought relief and land rights (see report in People’s Democracy/Loklahar, April 4-10, 2016) had brought the chief minister of Maharashtra to the negotiating table and he had then conceded some important demands.

USUALLY, Vijayadashami day has seen two addresses by the Hindutva forces – one by the RSS chief in Nagpur and the other by the Shiv Sena chief in Mumbai.  This year there was a third pole – the speech by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a Ramleela gathering in Lucknow.  This is what has made the politics associated with Dussehra distinctive this year. Both the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and the Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray lauded Modi for the “surgical strikes” across the Line of Control.  This was an acknowledgement of the elevated stature that Modi has acquired in the Hindutva camp. T

THE Students’ Union elections of the University of Hyderabad were held last week. Unlike the years before, this election held a significant importance in the national scenario. Universities and institutes across the country faced an onslaught of attacks on their autonomy through a set of policies and ineligible appointments under the present BJP-led government.