THE statement of RSS chief that constitutional amendments were needed to fully integrate Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of the country is an eye opener for those who have still illusions about the intentions of the RSS and its affiliates.It is not surprising because RSS and its political affiliates Bhartiya Jan Sangh and BJP has consistent position about the Article 370. The special status of J&K was always an eyesore for them.
THE elections to the Himachal Pradesh state assembly may be announced any day and are expected to be in the second week of November 2017. The CPI(M) well in advance, has released its list of candidates who have even started the campaign in their respective constituencies. The Party is contesting in 13 seats that include four in Shimla , three in Mandi, two in Hamirpur and one each in Kullu, Solan, Sirmour and Lahaul and Spiti districts.The CPI(M) earlier had won two seats in Mandi and another in Shimla.
THE discussion on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) until now has focussed almost exclusively on the distribution of its burden across commodities, on the difficulties of meeting its stringent bureaucratic demands, and on the delays in obtaining claims for refunds. Even the view that it is pushing the economy into a recession has attributed this looming recession merely to its stringent procedural demands which supposedly have tied most sellers in knots.
THREE months of campaigns and mobilisation of people at the grassroots level on their day-to-day issues culminated in a huge turnout of peasants, workers and women at Jan-Aakrosh March in Patna on September 19.
All India Democratic Women’s Association observed Dussehra on September 30, by burning the effigy of the so-called (religious) babas, who violate women behind the fig-leaf of religion and the anti-women vice-chancellor of BHU. These elements get the patronage of the BJP government which has also resulted in the exponential increase in the incidence of violence against women during the three-years of NDA rule.The programme was conducted by the Delhi president of JMS and the gathering was addressed by AIDWA general secretary Mariam Dhawale, and Delhi secretary Asha Sharma.
THE BJP president, Amit Shah, has embarked on a dangerous course of inciting violence against the CPI(M) by leveling false charges and accusations against the Party.Amit Shah has launched a `yatra’ of the BJP in Kerala, starting from Payyannur in Kannur district. In his speech at the inauguration of the yatra, Shah made the shop-worn allegations about “red terror”, but what was new was his attributing the “killings of BJP-RSS workers” to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.The RSS violence against the CPI(M) in Kerala has occurred not only during the tenure of the present LDF
THOMAS Piketty and Lucas Chancel have just written a paper as part of their work for the World Inequality Report discussing the movement of income inequality in India. And their conclusion is that the extent of income inequality in India at present is greater than it has ever been at any time in the last one hundred years.Their estimates go back to 1922 when the Income Tax Act became operational in India. The share of the top 1 per cent of the population in total income at that date was around 13 per cent.
SIKAR, situated in Shekhawati region of Rajasthan, has a glorious history of peasant struggles. From 1920s through 1960s, peasants of Sikar fought successfully against the jagirdars. Sikar had an extremely oppressive jagirdari regime under the Raja of Sikar and peasants worked under a huge burden of taxes (lag) and obligation to provide unpaid labour and military services (bag).
The South Asian Regional Seminar of Communist and Left parties expresses its serious concern about the grave humanitarian crisis regarding the Rohingyas who have been rendered as human beings belonging to nowhere as a result of the incessant terror and acts of violence in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. Rohingya population are forced to leave their homes and hearths and move to neighbouring countries in order to survive. Bangladesh has borne the brunt of such an exodus of refugees.