Impressive Rally against Superstition, Communalism

ON December 2, 2013, an impressive rally of several thousand people marched in Mumbai around three main demands. These were: immediate enactment of a law against black magic and superstition in the ensuing session of the state assembly at Nagpur beginning December 9; immediate arrest of the killers of Dr Narendra Dabholkar and of the diabolical forces behind this murder; and stringent action against communal and obscurantist forces.

Homage Paid to Mandela

ON December 9, 2013, a condolence meeting organised at A K Gopalan Bhavan, the CPI(M) headquarters in New Delhi, paid homage to Nelson Mandela, the legendary figure who led the fight against apartheid in South Africa. Addressing the party workers on this occasion, Sitaram Yechury, member of the CPI(M) Polit Bureau, underlined some aspects of Nelson Mandela’s life and work which the bourgeois media, even while eulogising Mandela, seeks to hide from the people.

Moves Afoot to Disband Pro-Unification Party

ACCORDING to a report issued by the secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea on October 24, 2013, a South Korean conservative group has urged the country’s ministry of justice, often considered to be a pliant body, to form a "team of experts to take measures against political parties and organisations violating (the) constitution," and has staged the farce of making a legal examination to facilitate the disbanding of the Unified Progressive Party.

Mandela, For You and For Me

IT is 7.30 in the evening and we have to rush for our school at 8.00. Yes, school! These days, we are going to a school after work to learn how to read – both the alphabet and the world. Some young people have started it some days ago and wanted all of us to come. We were shy in the beginning, but after two days, became very fond of it as they are telling us many new things happening around us.

World Bows to Mandela

THE SPECIAL Air India plane carrying a six-member delegation headed by President Pranab Mukherjee, to attend the international memorial service for Nelson Mandela on December 10, landed in the midst of heavy rain at the Waterkloof military airbase, Pretoria, South Africa. This was once a notorious military base for the apartheid South African government that mounted its oppressive air attacks against the non-white South African people whom they mercilessly exploited and segregated.

Put Western Ghats Report on Hold: CPI(M)

THE Tamilnadu state committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has urged the centre to put on hold the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel report by K Kasturirangan, and review it after wider discussions to prevent the possible displacement of lakhs of tribal population.

Talking to reporters on the resolutions adopted by the three-day long meeting of the state committee, CPI(M) state secretary G Ramakrishnan said protection of ecology should not be done at the cost of the livelihood of tribal people.

CPI(M), TNUEF Take Up Cudgels for Dalits

A RUMOUR was spread that a dalit boy teased a caste Hindu girl. Without waiting for anything, more than 100 people barged into the dalit area and torched six houses and damaged more than fifty houses. This is not an odd incident that can be brushed aside as some eve-teasing and reaction case. In Dindigul district, Nilakottai taluk, there are two villages called Nadupatti and Kariyampatti. Dalits live in Nadupatti and the caste Hindus live in Kariyampatti. On November 25, a rumour was spread that a boy from Nadupatti had teased a girl from Kariyampatti.

‘Declare Odisha Cyclone a National Calamity’ Centre Feels Compelled to Shell out Rs 300 Crore

ON December 5, 2013, a five-member delegation from the Odisha state unit of the CPI(M) met the president of India at New Delhi, followed by a meeting with the union home minister the next day. The delegation consisted of the CPI(M) state secretary Janardan Pati, its state secretariat members Santosh Das, Ali Kishore Patnaik and Bishnu Mohanty, and former MLA Laxman Munda. It was led by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury who is leader of the CPI(M) group in Rajya Sabha and by Basudeb Acharia, leader of the CPI(M) group in Lok Sabha.

More Stringent Law against Atrocities Demanded

AGARTALA, the capital of Tripura, witnessed a massive rally on December 3, 2013, organised by Tripura Tapashili Jati Samanway Samiti, as the organisation met the chief minister of the state to hand him over mass signatures for forward transmission to the prime minister. The organisation has been demanding more stringent legislation to prevent atrocities against dalits.

LDF Intensifies Stir with Cliff House Siege

THE opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) has intensified its struggle to press for resignation of the Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy, tainted in the solar panel scam, with a massive siege of Cliff House, official residence of the chief minister at Thiruvananthapuram. This indefinite blockade of the CM’s official residence began on Monday, December 9, as thousands of LDF workers literally laid a siege of it. Hundreds of workers courted arrest.

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