The first-time voters appearing for their Higher Secondary exams this year, or those on the verge of graduation, have grown up seeing only the Modi and Mamata governments. They have come of age amidst corruption, the reign of miscreants, Hindu-Muslim hatred, communal violence, rape, unemployment, crumbling state schools and hospitals, despair, precarious low-income jobs, and a widening chasm between the rich and the poor. This generation has never had the opportunity to witness a Left-wing government. Instead, they find deprivation, poverty, and frustration to be their constant companions.

The world is looking elsewhere. Other conflicts dominate the headlines. But Cuba is under attack. Wars these days are fought not only on the battlefield. There is a simultaneous information war being waged to shape perception through deception and gain a psychological advantage. This is something more subtle. More dangerous. In Cuba, the goal is to break the Cuban peoples resistance from within.

The Left Front’s manifesto for the West Bengal Assembly elections highlights people’s livelihood issues above anything else: ‘No Mandir-Masjid, Bengal needs Employment’. It is a document that excels the left, democratic and secular alternatives to “Save Bengal”. Veteran CPI(M) leader and Left Front Chairman Biman Basu released the election manifesto in a press meet on March 4, along with CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sridip Bhattacharya, CPI State Secretary Swapan Banerjee, Sanjib Chatterjee of the Forward Bloc, Rajib Banerjee of the Revolutionary Socialist Party and others.

In the forested plateau of Santhal Pargana in Jharkhand, a vast and violent transformation is underway. Beneath the hills and agricultural lands of this region lie some of the most valuable coal reserves in eastern India. Over the past two decades, these deposits have been opened to extraction through the development of the three adjacent blocks in the Pachwara coal belt situated in the Rajmahal Coalfield spanning the Pakur-Dumka region. The blocks are called Pachwara North, Pachwara Central, and Pachwara South.

Aspirational India with a huge increase in the educated population ironically seems to be adding jobs in agriculture in the recent past! The ‘demographic dividend’ as it is often referred to, with a higher proportion of working age people within the total population, is going to be over by 2030; thereafter the share of the young is likely to decline after reaching its peak. At its peak, the share of the working age population will be more than double the dependent population.