THE Maharashtra state committee of the Students Federation of India (SFI) successfully organised a state study camp from June 5 to 8, 2014, at Aadarsh Vidyalaya in Mumbai. A total of 187 delegates from 14 districts of the state, including 43 girl students, attended the camp. The state camp commenced with the hoisting of the flag by SFI state president Mohan Jadhav. After the delegates paid homage at the martyrs column, SFI state secretary Datta Chavan made the introductory and welcome speech.
On June 12, CITU general secretary Tapan Sen addressed the following letter to Dharmendra Pradhan, ministry of petroleum and natural gas, regarding the theft of natural gas from its Bay of Bengal block by the Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL).
Parmar’s new book documents in fascinating detail how Ford, Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations, successfully decimated Socialist movements in Indonesia, Chile and Nigeria, and installed pro-American capitalist governments.
CHILLING reports of massacres are pouring from Iraq. Hundreds of civilians are gruesomely killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants. ISIS is an outfit created, funded and armed by the US to destabilise the region. The declared goal of the ISIS is the creation of an Islamic state in Syria (and Iraq) and the return of the Islamic caliphate, which ended after the fall of the Ottoman empire in 1924. In an offensive that took the world by surprise, the ISIS militia ran amok over vast swathes of Iraqi territory, stomping over Mosul, the second most important city of Iraq.
THE only reason there is a question mark at the end of the title is that, although a policy note is pending consideration by the cabinet, the BJP-led government has not yet announced its decision. But the drumbeats in support of a policy to further liberalise the defence manufacturing sector to FDI are growing louder, led by Indian corporates with clear vested interests, as well as some strategic experts advancing a spurious logic and some economists and miscellaneous commentators who perennially clamour for FDI in any and all spheres, as if it were the panacea for all difficulties.
THROUGH a press statement issued from New Delhi on June 9, 2014, the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) strongly condemned the threat issued to renowned singer Shubha Mudgal in California. There, a pro-Modi supporter of Hindutva threatened Mudgal at a concert, for her vocal and public opposition to the Hindutva forces.
THE role of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh in the 2014 general election has been astonishing not only in its extent and influence, but even more so, in its very public and direct involvement in the most significant political event in the nation’s calendar. The door-to-door campaigning and booth management by more than six lakh RSS cadres who worked under RSS committees during the general elections, is now going to be repeated for the impending Delhi assembly elections. The organisation has again announced that the BJP cannot be relied upon to carry out these tasks efficiently.
THE All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) unit in the Surgana tehsil of Nashik district of Maharashtra continued its three decades old tradition by organising a mass adivasi wedding of 51 couples on May 31, 2014. Over 10,000 people attended this unique function that was held in Alangun village.
A DELEGATION of the All India Federation of Anganwadi Workers and Helpers (AIFAWH) under the leadership of Tapan Sen MP, general secretary, CITU met the minister for women and child development, Maneka Gandhi on June 17, 2014 and submitted a 16-point charter of demands. The delegation consisted of A R Sindhu, general secretary and K Hemalata, vice president of AIFAWH and secretaries of CITU and Usharani, Santosh Rawal and Kishori Varma, secretaries of AIFAWH.
THE Intelligence Bureau report suggesting that foreign-funded NGOs are holding up the nation’s “development” could be dismissed as a silly piece of officialese, were it not for the fact that the government of India seems keen to use it not just for acting against some particular NGOs but for breaking down any opposition to the process of primitive accumulation of capital unleashed by neo-liberalism.