THE huge public outcry and resentment at the increasing incidents of rapes and sexual offences against women today can well be understood and appreciated. In a country where a woman is reportedly raped every 15 minutes (this, despite many rape cases still going unreported), and where a woman is a victim of crime every two minutes, such outrage is a natural reaction, particularly when law makers and law protectors become accomplice to such heinous acts, as demonstrated in Kathua and Unnao rape cases.

IN West Bengal, panchayat elections have been reduced to a farce as 34 per cent seats in three tiers have been captured by the TMC ‘uncontested’. There is no example of such an unashamed exercise of terrorisation either in West Bengal or in the country.

ON April 28, 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that India has achieved 100 per cent village electrification. This was followed by BJP’s social media brigade extolling Modi and his government’s achievements. In this rush to claim credit, what the BJP and its PM seem to have forgotten is that electrifying villages is not the same as electrifying households. Neither does it take into account the long journey India has taken on this count after achieving independence.

CPI(M) Polit Bureau has issued the following statement on April 28.

THE Communist Party of India (Marxist) expresses its opposition to the agreement (MOU) arrived at between the ministry of tourism, ministry of culture and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and Dalmia Bharat Limited which virtually hands over the iconic Red Fort in Delhi to the Dalmia group for a period of five years in exchange for a payment of 25 crores.