The National Women’s organisations - All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch (AIDMAM), All India Democratic Women’s, Association (AIDWA), All India Women Conference (AIWC), Centre for Women’s Development Studies (CWDS), Guild of Service (GOS), Joint Women’s Programme ( JWP), National Federation Of Indian Women (NFIW), and Young Women’s Christian Association of India (YWCA) have jointly issued the following statement on June 20, 2013
A 17-MEMBER Venezuela Solidarity Committee (VSC) was formally constituted in New Delhi on June 12, 2013. The meeting was attended by A B Bardhan, Prakash Karat, Sudhakar Reddy, Debabrata Biswas, G Devrajan, Achin Vanaik, Ravi Roy, Nilotpal Basu and Pallab Sengupta. The committee was formed with the participant members with this understanding that it would be a broadbased committee by accommodating more members from different sections of society. The next meeting of the committee will be held at Ajoy Bhavan on July 19 evening.
A five-member CPI(M) delegation headed by Prakash Karat, general secretary, is visiting China for a week starting from June 16, 2013. The visit is at the invitation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
The other members of the delegation are: A K Padmanabhan (Polit Bureau member), Jogendra Sharma (Central Secretariat member), P Madhu and Rama Das (Central Committee members).
EDWARD Snowden's disclosures to The Guardian and the Washington Post of surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA) has created a public storm. Simply put, it is now clear that all those dismissed as conspiracy theorists have been right all along – every bit of digital communications are today under the NSA's scanner. The NSA violates the privacy of its own citizens, the sovereignty of other countries and the privacy of all foreigners – dubbed as “aliens” in the US law.
A STUDY based on IMF data and IMF projections for 181 countries conducted at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University, New York, by Isabel Ortiz and Matthew Cummins, has some remarkable findings.
AS we go to press, the Janata Dal (United) government in Bihar led by Nitish Kumar has decisively won the vote of confidence by securing the support of more than 50 per cent of the strength of the Bihar state assembly. In response to the JD(U)’s withdrawal from the NDA over the question of BJP announcing the virtual projection of Narendra Modi as its future prime ministerial candidate, 91 BJP MLAs in the Bihar assembly walked out before voting. However, even if they were present and voted, it would not have changed the outcome.
THE latest round of talks to resolve the long running dispute over Iran’s nuclear programme seem to have once again ended without making much progress. The talks, the second within a short span of time, had taken place in the salubrious climes of Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan, in early April. The venue was carefully chosen, as Kazakhstan had positioned itself as an honest broker between the West and Iran.
THOUSANDS of workers and peasants staged a militant demonstration at Kaithal in Haryana May 29, in protest against the repression the state police has let loose on the struggling Maruti workers. The large protest demonstration was organised by the district unit of the CPI(M), against the police brutalities on dismissed Maruti workers and their family members on May 18 and 19 last.
MORE than 50,000 cadres of the CPI(M) courted arrest on May 24 while staging an agitation across Tamilnadu in opposition to the anti-people policies being pursued by the ruling UPA government. The agitation was in response to a call of the party’s Central Committee.
Protest actions were held in front of all the central government offices located at district headquarters across the state.