DURING every election in Punjab, the SAD-BJP combine and the Congress rake up the issue of river water-sharing to exploit the people’s sentiments to get votes, but neither of them made any concerted effort to resolve the row surrounding the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) Canal, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury has said.Addressing an election rally in Garhshanker in Hoshiarpur district of Punjab on January 28, he said river water is a natural resource and any decision on sharing of natural resources can be taken only by sitting together.

(1) Landed proprietorship is abolished forthwith without any compensation.(2) The landed estates, as also all crown, monastery, and church lands, with all their livestock, implements, buildings and everything pertaining thereto, shall be placed at the disposal of the volost land committees and the uyezd Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies pending the convocation of the Constituent Assembly.(3) All damage to confiscated property, which henceforth belongs to the whole people, is proclaimed a grave crime to be punished by the revolutionary courts.

AFTER years of protracted negotiations, India and Japan finally inked a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement in November last year, during the course of the State visit by the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi. The deal will now allow Japan to supply India with nuclear fuel, equipment and technology for nuclear power production. India and Japan had started negotiations soon after the signing of the India-US nuclear deal in 2006. Formal negotiations started six years ago.

THE Indo Canadian Workers’ Association of Canada held its biennial conference on January 22, 2017 at Strawberry Hill Library Hall in Surrey, Canada.

THE Union Budget 2017-18 presented by the finance minister on February 1 in parliament is totally disappointing and deceptive in many respects. CITU’S RESPONSE TO THE BUDGETThe Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), in a statement issued on February 1, has noted that the  finance minister, in his budget speech, boastfully mentioned about doing away with the classification of plan and non-plan expenditure, putting the entire expenditure in one basket.