THE three day India-Africa summit (IAFS) held in New Delhi from October 27-29, according to Indian officials, was the most important event held in the capital since the 1983 NAM summit. The NDA government had been preparing for more than a year to make the IAFS a grandiose event. Previous India-Africa summit organised when the UPA was in power was in contrast, a modest affair with only a small group of African leaders being invited. The first IAFS was held in 2008 in New Delhi and the second time in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa in 2011.

A SEMINAR on the subject ‘Erosion of Rights of Linguistic States’ was held in Bengaluru on December 13. The Janashakthi, organ of the CPI(M) state committee, organised the seminar as part of ‘Janashakthi Utsav 2015’ where a special issue of the weekly, Rajyotsava, was also released. The website of the journal was also inaugurated. Theme of the special issue was ‘Karnataka 60: Dreams & Reality’. The seminar assumed significance in the background of the 60th anniversary of formation of states on linguistic basis.

THE only living being in the universe that can kill itself is mankind. It is not the manifestation of the instinct but a conscious destruction of the self. What kind of consciousness operates here? Does it happen at a juncture when death becomes more alluring than life? The answer shall be an emphatic ‘no’. Self-killing occurs only when man finds no other solution to the problems that make the life woeful.EPIDEMIC OF FARMER SUICIDEIn Odisha, more and more farmers are now killing themselves. It has taken the form of an epidemic.

THE Plenum on Organisation began with a massive rally on December 27 morning at Brigade Parade Grounds. The rally reverberated with slogans of  ‘We shall fight, we shall win,’ and vowed to fight against the anti-people policies and terror regime in West Bengal and the communal machinations and terror of the Sangh Parivar in the country.delegate session of the Plenum started in the evening on December 27 and continued till December 31 afternoon.

In the 21st Party Congress, you have reviewed "Our growing weakness was the electoral alliance and adjustment that we had entered into with various regional parties". "By this we compromised the identity and independent role of our Party" and therefore "could not gain the people’s confidence". In this review, I am afraid, you might have missed to refer to, as it appears, our alliance with the Congress under the pseudonym Congress for democracy in Tripura in, perhaps, 1977 and our alliance with the Congress at the centre in 2004 with varied results.