THE DYFI has raised an amount of Rs 10,95,86,537 for  the chief minister’s disaster relief fund(CMDRF)  by collecting scrap, reselling garbage for recycling, and doing different kinds of jobs. Even as the first Coronavirus cases surfaced in Kerala and the state government stepped up its defence, Kerala’s young people were at the forefront of the efforts. The DYFI-led campaign ‘Njangalund’ (we are here), which was started to provide assistance to the needy during the lockdown, is still on.

PMCARES, a private trust fund created by the prime minister, right since the inception is in strong criticism not just by the opposition parties but by all those who believe in transparency of public funds. Nobody knew for what and how will this money be utilised, which quintessentially was supposed to be spent to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic in India.

Below we publish the statement issued by the Central Trade Unions – INTUC, AITUC, HMS, CITU, AIUTUC, TUCC, SEWA, AICCTU, LPF and UTUC – on August 25AFTER the announcement on August 18, 2020, by the civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri that his ministry would place a proposal for further privatisation of airports before the union cabinet, the cabinet rubber stamped the proposal for leasing out three airports – Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram – through public private partnership (PPP), on August 19.

THERE is a commonly-held view that the current crisis in capitalism, which has resulted in a massive output contraction and increase in unemployment, is because of the pandemic; and that once the pandemic gets over, things will go back to “normal”.This view is entirely erroneous for two reasons. The first which has been often discussed in this column, has to do with the fact that even before the pandemic the world economy was slowing down. In fact ever since the financial crisis of 2008 following the collapse of the housing bubble, the real economy of the world had never fully recovered.

After the Communist Party was allowed to function legally, for the first time since its formation, it organised a Convention of Party cadre working in the Trade Union front (AITUC in the main, but also other trade unions). Around 300 comrades attended this two-day convention held in Calcutta, in 1952, where the Party’s approach to the workers’ issues and methods to be adopted while working in the TU front were discussed, decided and certain directions were given.