THE Oxfam, released a study called ‘Time to Care’ ahead of the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos. According to the report on India,  Oxfam said the combined total wealth of 63 Indian billionaires is higher than the total union budget of India for the fiscal year 2018-19 which was at Rs 24,42,200 crore.

Not just that India’s one per cent hold more than four times the wealth held by 953 million people who make up for the 70 per cent of the bottom country’s population.

THE Kolkatta district committee of the CPI(M) held a massive rally against the CAA and the proposed NPR and NRC. The rally was held at Shaheed Minar, Kolkatta on January 20, 2020. Thousands of people from different sections of the society participated in the rally. The public meeting was addressed by Surjya Kanta Mishra, state secretary of CPI(M), Mohammad Salim, Polit Bureau member of the Party and other leaders.

WITH the US walking out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—more commonly known as the Iran accord—we all enter into a heightened zone of danger. Trump is threatening a war on Iran through his statements and tweets, and by his actions, assassinating a serving Iranian General. A war in the region threatens the entire oil and shipping infrastructure of West Asia.

A MASSIVE rally, with an estimated participation of over five lakh people, on January 21, 2020 in Gulbarga, Karnataka gave a clarion call for a civil disobedience against the central government for implementing the CAA(Citizenship Amendment Act). The call for the rally was given by the Karnataka People’s Forum(KPF) comprising political parties and other sections of the civil society. The major political parties of the KPF are Congress, JD(S), CPI, SUCI and the CPI(M) along with some of the major groups working amongst the tribals and the dalits.

THE historic juncture in which the 16th all India conference of CITU began on January 23 in Chennai, was ringing loud and clear. In the backdrop of breathless mounting of attacks on the lives and livelihood of the toiling people and on their hard-won rights for collective bargaining on the one hand, and on the other, the building resistance all across the country to fight back these attacks, specially the magnificent All India General Strike held just two weeks back – the challenges before the conference are clear and grave.