THE appointment of Dr Soumya Swaminathan, director general of the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), as a deputy director general (DDG) of the World Health Organisation is a welcome development. She joins Jane Ellison of the UK as one of the two newly appointed DDGs and will be in overall charge of programmes, while Jane Ellison will be in charge of ‘corporate affairs’. The WHO elected Tedros Adhanom of Ethiopia as the new director general (DG) at the World Health Assembly in May 2017, to replace the outgoing incumbent, Dr Margaret Chan.

BJP president Amit Shah’s son, Jay Shah, has become the centre of a case of crony capitalism and questions are being raised about business malfeasance. According to a well-researched report in “The Wire”, an online news portal, Jay Shah owned a private limited company, Temple Enterprise Pvt Ltd, which had a revenue of only Rs 50,000 in 2014-15 but which rose to a turnover of Rs 80.5 crore in 2015-16, which is a 16,000 fold rise.  The company had unsecured loans of Rs 16.78 crore from a financial services firm.  However, in October 2016, the company abruptly wound up its business.An

HUNDREDS of activists of CPI(M) led by general secretary Sitaram Yechury ​and Polit Bureau members  Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat, S Ramachandran Pillai and ​BV Raghavalu, marched from  Vithal Bhai Patel House, Delhi state party office of CPI(M) to BJP headquarters on October 9, protesting against the killing of CPI(M) cadres by RSS-BJP in Kerala.

IN a letter written to Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister of Kerala, on October 8,The Dalit Shoshan Mukthi Manch has congratulated the government of Kerala for appointing priests belonging to dalit and other backward communities to various temples of Kerala. DSMM congratulated the chief minister and the state government for taking this path-breaking initiative, which will serve as a model for the entire country. Nowhere in the country such a radical step has been taken to eradicate the caste system and reduce the discrimination that the dalits face.

MASS organisations in West Bengal are preparing for a massive campaign-agitation march, raising the demands of all sections of people. The march, like jathas, will actually consist of numerous local level marches, culminating into district and region-wise longer marches and finally merging into massive public meetings. More than 100 mass organisations, including trade unions, peasants’ organisations, student-youth-women organisations and representative organisations of different sections of people will participate in the march under the banner of Bengal Platform of Mass Organisations.