The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement on November 2, 2015.

THE Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) expresses its shock and profound grief at the sudden death of Comrade Hashim Abdul Halim, veteran leader of the Party. He was eighty years old.

ONCE again, the pen-pushers of the Modi government are busy churning out theories seeking to trivialise the rabid growth of communal and other forms of intolerance in the country. Such media moguls, particularly in the electronic media, have been advancing the old `worn out theory’, once again, of a `fringe’ as opposed to the `core’. The country is being misled that it is a fringe that is responsible for this menacingly growing intolerance and that the `core’ is not responsible. `The law and order machinery needs to control the fringe’. The RSS/BJP are, hence, not responsible!

THE CPI(M) Maharashtra state committee organised a three-day state-level Party class for its leading activists working on the women’s front from October 2-4, 2015. The class was held in the Comrade B T Ranadive Memorial Bhawan in New Mumbai. 112 selected women activists from 13 districts attended the class.The topics and teachers of the class were as follows: 1. Current challenges before the women’s movement – CPI(M) Central Committee member Sudha Sundararaman; 2. The danger of communalism and casteism – state committee member Dr Uday Narkar; 3. What is Marxism?

 The Indian Constitution in Article 51 A (h) demands, as a part of the fundamental duties of the citizens, that we '...develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform'. Unfortunately, what we are witnessing instead is the active promotion of irrational and sectarian thought by important functionaries of the government.The Indian civilization is a truly plural one. We have always had many practices and communities that have allowed space for each other; we celebrate the festivals and anniversaries of all faiths.

WITH the exodus of refugees to European shores showing no signs of receding, the European Union (EU) is facing a crisis that could threaten its very survival. Schengen visa rules that allow passport free travel in EU countries have been suspended. Border controls have been re-established and fences have reappeared on the continent for the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Europe so far has responded woefully to the refugee crisis, the biggest since Second World War. European authorities were no doubt caught by surprise by the sheer scale of the migration.