PROFESSOR Dwijendra Narayan Jha (DN Jha or DNJ in short), who fought shibboleths and superstitions all his life, was busy doing so when he took a break, had lunch, went for his siesta and breathed his last on February 4, 2021. On that count, the loss to the cause he stood for and served – by providing well-honed intellectual instruments for changing the world for the better – is indeed real and irreparable. The departure of anyone who has given all that he/she had to is indeed very sad, but the bereavement causes little loss to the cause as such.

COMRADE Raghunath Singh was born in 1954 at village Binewal in Hoshiarpur district of Punjab. This is a semi-hilly area of Punjab. His father Comrade Rulia Ram Adhial was a well-known communist leader and a famous freedom fighter. He was brought up in a committed communist family. Comrade Rulia Ram Adhial came into contact with the underground communist leader, Comrade Swami Gauri Shankar in the year 1932 and later became a member of the Communist Party. Comrade Harkishan Singh Surjeet and other state leaders were regular visitors to their house.

SEPTEMBER was a cruel month for the CPI(M) in Maharashtra. One of the most respected Party leaders in the state, Dr Vithal More, a former member of the state secretariat, passed away on September 18. He was 71. Less than a fortnight earlier, a fighting Party and trade union leader, Uddhav Bhawalkar, also a former member of the state secretariat, passed away on September 5. He was 68. Both were victims of Covid.

THE CPI(M) Tamil Nadu state committee expresses its deep sorrow on the passing away of one of the senior leaders of the Party in Tamil Nadu Com D Lakshmanan, at the age of 84, due to the coronavirus on August 24 night at a hospital in Chennai.

The CPI(M) Tamilnadu  state committee conveys its deepest condolences over the demise of  D Lakshmanan.

Born in a poor family Comrade DL joined the government service and worked in the veterinary department.

CPI(M)  Polit Bureau has issued  the following statement on May 16

THE Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) expresses its profound grief and shock at the death of Comrade K Varadharajan, former member of the Polit Bureau and currently a special invitee to the Central Committee of the CPI(M). He died this afternoon at Karur, Tamil Nadu, following a respiratory problem. He had gone to visit his son in Karur where he was caught in the lockdown. He was 73 years old.