THE by-election to the Chengannur assembly constituency, a traditional bastion of the opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), has proved that the incumbent LDF government has won the confidence of the people through various development and welfare measures.

CPI(M) candidate Saji Cherian won the by-election with a huge margin of over 20,000 votes. The result was announced on May 31, a day after the culmination of the second anniversary celebrations of the LDF government led by Pinarayi Vijayan.

ONCE again, there is some talk about talks to be held on Jammu & Kashmir.  On May 26, the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, in a media interview said that the government is ready to hold talks with Hurriyat, if the Hurriyat leadership is ready for such talks. As far as Pakistan is concerned, he stated that the government is ready to hold talks with Pakistan if it comes forward to hold talks but added that terrorism promoted by Pakistan has to end. 

THE BJP party which was considered to be an urban party-having more influence in the cities was supposed to address the urban issues better than its predecessors in ruling. But, four years of the BJP rule at the centre with a clear majority of its own has completely disappointed the people living in the cities.

Today more than 1/3rd of the people live in urban centres. There are over 7,935 small and big towns and 468 class 1 cities. These cities are those which hold a population of above 1, 00,000. Nearly 70 per cent of the urban populace lives in these class 1 cities.

THE Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, as part of a high level dialogue it had initiated last year between November 30 and December 3, 2017 under the title, “CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-Level Meeting”, had decided that various thematic events would be organised subsequently. 

In accordance with this, the CPC organised a high level thematic event commemorating the 200th birthday of Karl Marx on May 28, 2018 at Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China.

Almost three months after the BJP-IPFT government assumed office in Tripura, the Left Front on May 25, had organised a mass sit-in programme at Agartala to lodge its protest against the overall anti-democratic atmosphere prevailing in the state; demanding immediate halt to the fascist like terror by the ruling parties;  for halting the selected demolition of the offices of the opposition parties and trade unions; for speedy measures to check the scarcity of food and work in tribal and rural areas and for ensuring rule of law in the state.