EVERY time an Indian prime minister has visited Washington in recent years, the corporate media has gone into overdrive and a lot of hype was generated about the “historic" nature of the visit and the breakthrough achieved in Indo-US relations. The visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the United States, the fourth in the past two years, was no different. The corporate media, the strategic experts and the think-tanks, some of them purely American-funded, have all sought to embellish the outcome of the Modi visit as a substantial achievement.

P SREERAMAKRISHNAN, a young CPI(M) leader who won form Ponnani constituency in Malappuram district has been elected as the speaker of Kerala legislative assembly. LDF candidate got 92 vote one plus than its actual strength, as the opposition candidate V P Sajeendran of the Congress party managed to get 46 votes.

OWING to the division of state, Chandrababu Naidu has got the chief ministerial status, but the state of Andhra Pradesh had not yet got the special status, remarked BV Raghavulu, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M), satirically while addressing a public meeting in Bhimavaram on the occasion of the CPI(M) state committee meeting held from June 7-9, 2016.Prior to the commencement of  the meeting, a huge rally was taken out in the thoroughfares of Bhimavaram Town in which hundreds of Party cadre participated. The town was painted red with posters and flags, and with the dresses of the cadre.

The All India Democratic Women’s Association(AIDWA) in a statement issued on June 3 has expressed solidarity with Pakistan’s women who reacted strongly to the statement made by Pakistan clergy “Beat wives lightly” as a violation of fundamental rights of women. AIDWA also condemned similar derogatory remarks by people holding public offices in India. AIDWA protested when the WCD minister made such remark in the context of marital rape not being applied to Indian families. It also protested against attack on Section 498A which criminalises domestic violence.

THE 38th state conference of the All India Kisan Sabha, Punjab unit was held at Bhawanigarh (Sangrur) on June 5-6, 2016. A mass rally was organised on the occasion of this two-day state conference on June 7. Gurchetan Singh Bassi presided over the rally. Addressing the rally, Hannan Mollah, all India general secretary of the AIKS said that the agricultural crisis all over the country has put the peasantry in distress.