USING the excuse that two of his predecessors – BJP’s Jaswant Singh in 2004 and Congress’s Pranab Mukherjee in 2009 – used the occasion of seeking a vote on account on the eve of general elections to make a political declaration on the so-called economic achievements of their supportive governments, P Chidambaram let loose a string of expletives claiming miraculous economic achievements during the last ten years of the UPA government.

WEST Bengal witnessed one of the most horrific instances of rape being used as a political tool in Amta in Howrah, West Bengal. In order to take revenge for the political defeat in the panchayat elections, TMC goons broke open the door of the house of their opponent and gang raped 27 year old housewife along with one of her 43-year old in-law. The incident took place on 4th February 2014 at about 10.30pm, in Muktirchak gram in Howrah under Amta police station limits. Both the housewife and her in-law are admitted in Uluberia hospital with serious injuries.

EVEN as the Delhi maneuverings to decide on the bifurcation issue reached a feverish pitch, the working people of all three regions of Andhra Pradesh are unitedly on struggle path centering around their genuine demands. The 1.8 lakh strong Anganwadi workers and helpers in the state are conducting indefinite hunger strikes demanding hike in wages. At the same time in support of over 60,000 outsourced sanitation workers in municipalities, nine workers’ unions undertook a five-day long strike across the state demanding hike in wages.

RURAL credit cooperatives were born more than a hundred years ago and have been decisive in providing agricultural credit, especially to small and marginal farmers and to agricultural workers. As on March 31, 2013, the short term credit cooperative structure (STCCS) comprised 92,432 primary agricultural credit cooperative societies (PACS), 370 district central cooperative banks (DCCBs) and 31 state cooperative banks (StCBs).