THE All India Insurance Employees’ Association (AIIEA) and other unions in the four public sector general insurance companies will go on a nationwide strike on March 17.  Similarly, all unions in LIC will strike work on March 18, 2021.  These strike actions are to protest against the decision of the government to list LIC in the stock markets through an IPO, increase FDI limits in the sector from 49 per cent to 74 per cent and privatise one public sector general insurance company.

AROUND a million bank employees and officers went on a two-day strike on March 15 and 16 all over the country against the privatisation of public sector banks.

CPI(M) DELHI state committee outrightly rejects the undemocratic and authoritarian takeover of Delhi administration by the BJP led central government through four amendments brought to the Government of NCT of Delhi Act 1991 through a bill slated to be placed in the Lok Sabha. The bill in the pretext of giving clarity to the Supreme Court order of July 4, 2018, and February 14, 2019, goes against its spirit as it had upheld that the lieutenant governor is bound by the ‘aid and advice of the popularly elected government.

Bhagat Singh had made the following statement in the court after they had thrown bombs in the Assembly, on April 8, 1929:“Producers and workers are the most important section of society, but the exploiting class loots their hard-earned income and also keeps them bereft of basic rights. Farmers, who grow food for everyone, die of hunger along with their families, weavers who weave cloth for the world do not have enough to clothe their children, carpenters, blacksmiths and masons who build grand palaces are forced to live in slums themselves.

ANDHRA Pradesh came to a standstill on March 5 in response to a bandh call given by the Vizag Steel Plant Protection Committee. People from all walks of life opposed the central government’s move to privatise the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) known as the pride of the Telugu people.The workers of the plant who have been relentlessly staging protests at the Plant for over a month now, have received support from all major political parties except the BJP and its ally Janasena.