WITH severe drought conditions prevailing in several districts in Telangana and no relief measures forthcoming from the state government, to assess the field level situation, a team of leaders of the CPI(M) led by its state secretary Thammineni Veerabhadram conducted a padayatra on April 3,  in Mahabubnagar district, the most severely drought-affected area in the state. The team conducted padayatra in five mandals of Kalwakurthi, Vangoor, Achhampet, Balmur and Telakapalli, demanding drought relief measures and prevention of migration.

THE administration of the University of Hyderabad under the controversial vice chancellor P Appa Rao is still continuing undemocratic prohibition on entry of visitors, including parents of students and media persons, and members of parliament, academicians and social activists are obstructed and denied entry into the campus, while the students under the banner of Joint Action Committee have given a call for ‘Chalo HCU’ to unions of  students, political parties, mass organisations and the people at large  to come to the University on April 6 to protest against the undemocratic functioning of

TO connect with the new generation ahead of the Assembly elections, the official website of CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Pinarayi Vijayan was launched. The site – www.pinarayivijayan.in -- was inaugurated by Infosys co-founder and former CEO S D Shibulal at a function in Thiruvananthapuram on April 4. Speaking at the event, Vijayan said the people were amazed to see the Communists using modern technology while others just stood and criticised.

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement on April 4, 2016.

THE historic one lakh-strong state-wide rally on March 29, 2016 and the unprecedented day and night sit-in satyagraha on March 29-30 in the heart of Nashik city, squarely placed the Maharashtra Rajya Kisan Sabha (AIKS) for the first time at the centre stage of the peasant movement in Maharashtra. The four main issues on which the Kisan Sabha launched this struggle were peasant loan waiver, remunerative prices, drought relief and land rights. (See the report in People’s Democracy/Loklahar, February 15-21, 2016, for details of the issues.)