THE drone strikes have been touted by the US as “precision” weapons, taking out specific “targets” with minimum “collateral damage”, the military speak for killing innocent victims. The recent report in the Guardian (The Guardian, November 24, 2014) by Reprieve, a human rights group, shows how bogus this claim is – for killing 41 targets, drone strikes killed an estimated 1,147 others. In other words, for successfully killing one “target”, 28 people have to be killed.

THANKS to the geography of Kerala, yatras organised by various political parties from Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram touch almost all districts in a straight line. Many leaders had organised yatras (processions) in the past in order to propagate their respective ideologies. But a yatra, christened as Janapaksha Yatra, organised and led by state Congress president V M Sudheeran to propagate among others the need of prohibition in the state not only failed to make an impact but it also became a laughing stock to all including Congress men and women.

A VILLAGE in Nadia district witnessed barefaced brutality of the TMC regime when an armed gang of the ruling party attacked the peasants to capture a tract of land and shot dead a woman. Many others, including two women and a student suffered serious bullet injuries in the attack.

THE Times of India report (dated December 1) that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to attend the state cabinet meeting in Tripura is misleading.

The actual fact is that during the prime minister's visit to Tripura, the chief minister and state ministers are going to meet him at the state guest house. They will submit a memorandum and discuss with him issues concerning the state. This has been clarified by Chief Minister Manik Sarkar.

It may be recalled, that such a meeting of state ministers had taken place when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had visited Tripura.

A DELEGATION of All India Fishers and Fisheries Workers’ Federation (AIFFWF) comprising Tushar Ghosh, its president, Hemalata, general secretary, VV Saseendran, treasurer and Koottayi Basheer and P Stanly, both secretaries, met the union minister for environment and forests Prakash Javadekar on December 1, and submitted a memorandum on the difficulties faced by the fishers and other traditional people living in the country’s coastal areas due to the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification 2011.