COMRADE Kodiyeri Balakrishnan is no more with us.  After a long battle with cancer, he died in a hospital in Chennai.  In the last three years since he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he showed indomitable will in continuing to work while undergoing bouts of chemotherapy.

IT’S unthinkable that Comrade Kodiyeri Balakrishnan has departed from our midst. It causes deep pain.  He wasn’t just like a brother, there was real brotherhood between us. We both chose to tread the same path.His concern for the Party was above everything else even under acute illness. He thought about how to handle the attacks against the Party till his last days.

COMRADE Kodiyeri Balakrishnan was much more than a colleague to me. Senior to me by two years, he was as close to me as a brother in a relationship spanning over five decades. It dates back to 1972-73 when we worked together as colleagues and office bearers of the SFI at the state level. His end has come now, as we were working together simultaneously at the state and national levels.Kodiyeri was at his best, working at the organisational level. His skills in this regard were quite evident even from his student days.

RAJEEV Jha, a senior colleague in the editorial team of Loklahar, died of a sudden cardiac arrest on the intervening night of August 10-11. He suffered a massive heart attack suddenly and without any pre-symptoms and did not even get a chance to reach the nearest hospital. He was over 70 years old.Rajiv Jha was born on January 21,  1952, in a well-educated family in Bihar. His father was a doctor and a senior medical administrator.

RICH tributes were paid at  Bhubaneswar in respect to the memory of Comrade Sivaji Patnaik, veteran leader of  CPI(M) and toiling people of Odisha. Comrade Patnaik breathed his last at the age of 92 after a brief illness in a hospital in Bhubaneswar on  May 23. In a state-level condolence meeting held in Institution of Engineers Hall of  Bhubaneswar on June 10, Sitaram Yechury, general secretary CPI(M), Surjyakanta Mishra, Member of Polit Bureau with hundreds of Party workers joined the condolence meeting.Janardan Pati, a member of the Odisha state secretariat presided over the meeting.