UNDER a setting sky and crowded by thousands of red flag waving activists on the Shanmughom beach, facing the Arabian sea, in the capital city of Thiruvananthapuram, the month long Nava Kerala March led by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan  came to an end.  The concluding programme was postponed by a day because of the death of the popular progressive poet ONV Kurup.After inaugurating the grand culmination programme of the Nava Kerala March, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury pitched for the Left as the only alternative before the people of Kerala against the BJP and the Con

THE RSS-BJP drive to bring universities and higher educational institutions under its political-ideological domination is in full swing. The latest attack on Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and its student community was almost predictable given the recent events in other educational institutions which come under the purview of the central government. The JNU has become a prime target as it stands for all that is antithetical to the RSS-Hindutva forces.

THE execution of the prominent Saudi Shia cleric, Ayatollah Sheikh Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, by the Saudi authorities on January 1 along with 47 others, has led to a dangerous exacerbation of tensions between the Saudi monarchy and Iran. The execution of al-Nimr, whose only crime was calling for a peaceful struggle against the authoritarian regime in Riyadh, has further accentuated the dangerous sectarian divide in West Asia. Last year, 157 people were put to death in Saudi Arabia.

THE 16th biennial conference of Natun Sahitya Parishad, a progressive literary organisation of Assam, was held from January 8 to 10 at Manikpur in Bongaigaon district. The conference upheld the view of democratic consciousness and human values with the main slogan of confronting neo-liberal economic policies and the sinister design of casteism and communalism by literary activities.

THE Central Executive Committee of SFI, in a statement issued on February 6, has expressed deep concern and anger over the continuing developments in Indian universities which leads to the suicide of students one after another.   A young scholar has ended his life leaving another dark reminder how the universities have become effectively a killing field for the students and young scholars of our country under the thriving neo-liberal saffron raj of Modi.