ON September 23, the value of the rupee vis-a-vis the dollar fell to a new low: it crossed 81 to a dollar after some weeks of relative stability when it hovered between 79 and 80. And it fell despite the Reserve Bank’s running down of foreign exchange reserves in a bid to hold up its value. In fact foreign exchange reserves had reached their highest level in October last year, but since then there has been a decline by over $90 billion until September 23 to just below $550 billion.

A CYCLE of protests began in Haiti in July 2018, and, despite the pandemic, has carried on since then. The core reason for the protest in 2018 was that in March of that year the government of Venezuela, due to the illegal sanctions imposed by the United States, could no longer ship discounted oil to Haiti through the PetroCaribe scheme. Fuel prices soared by up to 50 per cent. On August 14, 2018, filmmaker Gilbert Mirambeau Jr. tweeted a photograph of himself blindfolded and holding a sign that read, “Kot Kòb Petwo Karibe a???” (Where did the PetroCaribe money go?).

THE fourth state conference of the Tamil Nadu Association for the Rights of the Differently Abled and Caregivers (TARATDAC), the state affiliate of the National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD), was held from September 19-21 in Chengalpet district, near Chennai.From humble beginnings when the TARATDAC was formed in 2010, this cross disability organisation now has 38 district committees, four organising committees, 295 local committees and has nearly 5000 units with over 80,000 memberships across Tamil Nadu.  It has successfully mobilised the rural and poor masses of families w

CPI(M) Polit Bureau has issued the following statements:THE Popular Front of India (PFI) is an organisation which holds extremist views and has been indulging in violent activities against its perceived opponents.  The CPI(M) has been strongly opposed to these extremist views and has always condemned the violent activities of the PFI.However, the notification of the PFI as an unlawful association under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) is not the way to tackle this problem.  Past experience has shown that bans on organisations like the RSS and the Maois

FOURTH ALL India convention of the Bhoomi Adhikar Andolan was held at Constitution Club, New Delhi, on September 26-27, 2022. It was attended by 190 delegates representing seventy organisations from 20 states, including Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura.The convention was inaugurated by Hannan Mollah. In the inaugural session, Dayamani Barla, Ulka Mahajan, Praful Samantray, Satyawan, Ashok Choudhury, Medha Patkar and Alok Shukla addressed the delegates. A report on land grab prepared by the research group was placed in this session.