WHAT will happen to Venezuela now, was one question that was on the top of everybody's mind when the news of Hugo Chavez's death shook the entire anti-imperialist world. In a country where the person, Chavez, was always seen as larger than the process, the Bolivarian process of socialist construction, (as Chavez himself termed it) this anxiety is quite justified.
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.
THE Haryana state unit of the CPI(M) has decided to intensity its efforts for seeking relief for those poor families who are being asked to repay for the benefits received following their exclusion from the below poverty line (BPL) list, as directed by the administration on the orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
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.
DELIVERING a special address at Madurai, Brinda karat, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M) said that radical social change would happen only when deep-rooted caste prejudices and discriminatory practices against Dalits are annihilated.
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.
NOW an AICC team’s visit to Kerala to discuss the change of guard in the UDF government is almost certain. On the other hand, the maze regarding the functioning of the chief minister’s office (CMO) got more complicated with the revelation made by a woman against the staff of the CMO. She told the media that her complaint on sexual harassment against one Girish was suppressed by the top brass.
THE unending list of martyrs of Left Parties in West Bengal, after Trinamul government came to power, has crossed hundred on June 23 when two CPI(M) workers were killed in Rejinagar in Murshidabad disatrict. In Rejinagar, a group of CPI(M) activists were attacked when they were returning after campaigning in panchayat elections. Comrade Debsharan Ghosh and Comrade Amar Ghosh were shot dead on the spot. The Congress party backed miscreants were behind the murderous attack in which two more CPI(M) workers including a candidate suffered serious injuries.
MAINTAINING its winning spree after the assembly elections in Tripura in February 2013, the Left Front swept the bypolls to the local bodies too, when the results were announced on June 22. As per the declared results for 91 seats of the zila parishads, panchayat samitis, gram panchayats, nagar panchayats and village committees, the Left Front has won in 87. The Congress and its ally, the pro-extremist Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT), could win in only three gram panchayat seats and one village committee seat.
On behalf of the whole council of ministers in the state, a group of ministers from Tripura submitted on June 21, 2013 the following memorandum to the president of India, when he was on a visit to the state. The memorandum sought to draw the president’s attention to the myriad problems the state has been facing ever since the partition of the country.