RECENT months have witnessed a dramatic spurt of killings in Iraq. There have been reports almost every day of dozens of civilians and officials being targeted in sectarian attacks. In April, 700 people were killed, making it the deadliest month in Iraq in the last five years. The month of May was even deadlier as Shia militant groups and the Iraqi army has started to retaliate. The death toll passed the thousand marks. Many of the deadliest attacks have happened in Shia areas and had all the hallmarks of Al Qaeda operations.

RENOWNED Hindi critic and researcher, Dr Shiv Kumar Mishra, breathed his last on June 21, 2013, in an Ahmedabad hospital where he was under treatment for the preceding 15 days. He was cremated at 8 a m next day in Vallabh Vidyanagar.

He had been the national president of the Janvadi Lekhak Sangh (JLS).

THE Haryana state unit of the CPI(M) has demanded an unconditional release of the party’s state committee member and corporation member, Prem Chand Saini, as well as of ten other activists who were arrested at Kaithal over a month ago while protesting against the illegal dismissal of more than 500 workers of the Maruti plant.

OFFERING a word of caution to both the central and the state governments, Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami, secretary of the CPI(M)’s Jammu & Kashmir state committee, said on June 20 that the issue of security of the pilgrims should not be politicised as it adds to the element of uncertainty to the annual pilgrimage which is integral to the ethos of Kashmir.

THE fifth state conference of Andhra Pradesh Girijana Sangham (APGS) called for combating the vested interests who were seeking to pit one section of tribals against another in Andhra Pradesh using the plank of uneven development. It called for united struggles against central and state governments’ neo-liberal economic policies that were ruining their lives.