THE recent announcement by the Narendra Modi government that Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi established by an act of parliament, cannot be recognised as special “minority institutions’ because the secular constitution of India does not permit the government to establish and provide funds to institutions of higher learning, specifically for the promotion of education and culture of religious minority communities.

IN its judgment of July 5, 2011, the Supreme Court wrote that the “State of Chhattisgarh shall take all appropriate measures to prevent the operation of any group, including but not limited to Salwa Judum and Koya Commandos, that in any manner or form seek to take law into private hands, act unconstitutionally or otherwise violate the human rights of any person”. This landmark Salwa Judum judgment was to form the basis of all further anti-naxalite and Maoist activities in the state.

MUCH to the shock of residents of Delhi, and also for concerned people across the country, municipal sanitation workers have again gone on strike in the national capital just months after they had carried out a 10-day strike in June last year. Even more surprising was the fact that the issues are the same – non-payment of wages. Like last year, garbage is piling up in the streets, allegations and counter allegations are flying fast and thick, the courts are involved and angry gheraos, dharnas and demonstrations are visible everywhere.

THE Left upsurge in Latin America appears to be abating. In October 2015 Jimmy Morales, the conservative candidate in Guatemala,  defeated the Left-leaning Sandra Torres in the presidential elections. On November 22, Mauricio Macri, the conservative presidential candidate in Argentina, defeated Daniel Scioli, his Peronist rival, by a narrow margin, to bring to an end a long period of Left ascendancy under Presidents Nestor Kirchner and his wife Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

THE Prime Minister’s Crop Insurance Scheme (PMCIS) was announced with much fanfare as the panacea for all risks faced by the farmers. Ironically, on the same day, news came out that in the year 2015 over 3,228 farmers had committed suicide in BJP-ruled Maharashtra. The phenomenon of farmers’ suicides has continued unabated for over two decades when the neo-liberal economic policies have been in operation. The ruling classes in a denial mode however, have sought to underplay the unprecedented human tragedy and linked farmers’ misfortunes to the weather gods.