HIMACHAL PRADESH: CPI(M) Prepares for Assembly Elections

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 Class Content of Goods and Services Tax

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.

BIHAR: Jan-Aakrosh Rally Warns: Countdown to Modi, Nitish has Begun

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.

34th All India Conference of AIKS’s Clarion Call: Unite and Rise to Defeat Anti-Farmer Policies

THE 34th Conference of the All India Kisan Sabha began in Hisar with a massive Kisan-Mazdoor (peasant-worker) rally.

AIDWA Burns Effigies of Babas who Violate Women

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.

Amit Shah’s Lumpen Politics

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

The Growing Income Inequality

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.

Agrarian Conditions and Recent Peasant Struggles in Sikar

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).

On the Rohingyas Issue

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.

PUNJAB: Comrade Surjeet’s Death Anniversary Observed

PEOPLE from all walks of life from many places in Punjab converged at the Girls School grounds of Bundala Manjhki (Jalandhar), native village of Comrade Harkishan Singh Surjeet, former general secretary of CPI(M) and a Communist leader of international repute to pay him tributes on his ninth death anniversary, on September 24. Besides state leaders of CPI(M), leaders of various political parties paid their tributes to Comrade Surjeet.

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