THE CPI(M) has said that the Law Commission seeking opinion of political parties on the viability of a uniform civil code is ill-timed and smacks of a politically motivated agenda.     In a letter to Law Commission Chairman Justice B S Chauhan on December 17, 2016, Party general secretary Sitaram Yechury said, “At the outset, it is to be stated that the CPI(M) is constrained to observe that the exercise undertaken by the Law Commission to ‘engage’ in a ‘healthy conversation’ about the ‘viability of a uniform civil code’ smacks of a politically motivated agenda.

THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions, in a statement issued on January 19 has denounced the desperate moves of the Narendra Modi government for disinvesting 25 percent shares in all the five public sector general insurance companies and opening them to private hands including foreign companies.

THE Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal has got exposed in Bhangar, where two persons were killed in police firing while they were protesting against forcible land acquisition. The bloodshed came after months of protest by villagers in Bhangar in South 24 Parganas. From 2013, multi crop agricultural lands were forcibly acquired for a power grid station. Moreover the land loot was organised by mafias led by the ruling party leaders. Arabaul Islam, the notorious TMC gangster in the area, is the main culprit behind this land grab and ousting of peasants without compensation.

Successive reports of the Association for Democratic Reforms, an NGO, on funding of political parties shows that the bulk of the contributions to the national parties, including the CPI(M), are from unknown sources.

ELECTIONS to the five state assemblies in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa have been notified.  Of these, in two states, Goa and Punjab, there are governments of the BJP and its allies; in Uttarakhand and Manipur, there are Congress governments; but it is in Uttar Pradesh, where there is a Samajwadi Party government that the most significant electoral battle will be fought. In Punjab, the Akali Dal-BJP coalition government is facing a strong anti-incumbency mood with the acute agrarian crisis, rising unemployment, rampant corruption and drug abuse being the hallmarks of t