THE RSS/BJP and its PM aspirant’s desperation at the possible emergence of a combination of secular opposition parties – non-Congress, non-BJP – in the run up to the 2014 general elections has reached a new crescendo. A litany of epithets have been unleashed which should be considered unbecoming by anybody, particularly by somebody who is self-proclaimed by the RSS/BJP as India’s future prime minister. Some of his comments denouncing the `third front’ as `third rate’ have drawn a spontaneous response that such comments can come only from a `third rate’ mindset!

A LANDMARK judgement delivered by Justice S M Mojibur Rahaman, judge of the Chittagong Special Tribunal, on January 30, 2014 has awarded death sentence to 14 accused who include some belonging to an Islamic fundamentalist outfit. Those convicted included Jama’at-e-Islami chief Matiur Rahman Nizami, BNP leader and former minister of state for home Lutfuz-Zaman Babar, Retired Major General Rezaqul Haider Chowdhury and Retired Brigadier General Md Abdul Rahim (two former chiefs of the National Security Agency of Bangladesh) and Paresh Barua, chief of the armed wing of ULFA of Assam.

ON February 3, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat expressed hope that the electoral understanding between the AIADMK and the Left parties would achieve success in Tamilnadu in the coming general elections, and also contribute to providing an alternative to the country.

Asked whether appeals had been made to other secular and democratic forces to be part of the alternative envisaged, he said discussions were on with various parties.

THE central executive committee of the Students’ Federation of India in a statement issued on February 1, 2013 expressed heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Nido Taniam, the 19-year old student studying at Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar, who was brutally attacked by shopkeepers at Lajpat Nagar in New Delhi, before succumbing to his death on January 31. Following as it does the horrific incident of the gang-rape of a Danish woman, this incident reminds us that despite the tall promises by the incumbent government, Delhi remains to be an extremely unsafe city.

ON February 3, 2014, the CITU’s Haryana state president Surender Singh Malik, who is also a member of the Haryana State Minimum Wages Advisory Board, raised in the board’s meeting the demand that the minimum wage must be at least Rs 15,000 in Haryana. The Advisory Board’s meeting was called by the principal secretary of the Department of Labour and Employment of the state government, who is also chairman of the said board, in Chandigrah.