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Soaring Prices and Manmohan’s Nuclear Chess They had been talking about double-digit economic growth. Instead, it is inflation which has crossed the double-digit barrier and the upward climb of the price spiral shows no sign of slowing down....Full text
Mockery of Democracy : Assaults on Journalists, Activists, and Academics Recently, the Gujarat Government slapped sedition charges on the Gujarat editor of the Times of India and his team for a series of articles questioning the appointment of O P Mathur as Police Commissioner of Ahmedabad.....Full text Address the Aspirations of the Hill People of Darjeeling The first phase of the movement for a separate state of Gorkhaland had culminated in 1988 with the formation of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC).....Full text Murder of NREG Activists in Jharkhand On 14 May, a young activist Lalit Mehta, who had been active in the right to food campaign and had the previous day initiated a social audit to expose corruption in implementation of NREGS in Palamu District, was killed on 14 May while on his way from Daltonganj to Chatarpur.....Full text
Plain-speaking by Planning Commission Report – Will the UPA Govt. Listen? An Expert Group set up by the Planning Commission, headed by D. Bandopadhyay, and including Dr. B.D. Sharma, Kamla Prasad, (Ex. Chief Secretary, Bihar), Prakash Singh, Ex. DGP (U.P.), Sukhadeo Thorat, Chairman, UGC, K. Balagopal, Bela Bhatia, Prof. Amit Bhaduri, K.B. Saxena, and others submitted a Report in April 08 on “Development challenges in extremist affected areas.” The Report makes some candid observations on the deep inequalities and injustices which beset the poor in India....Full text
Forest Rights Rules : Move to Subvert Forest Dwellers’ Rights When the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act was passed in December 2006, there was a general consensus that this legislation was a major milestone in the struggles for tribal rights. Indeed, the very fact that the legislation admitted the historic injustice done to forest dwellers by treating them as “encroachers”..Full text
Public Private Partnerships: Private Profiteers Peddling Education? How does neo-liberal capital recycle itself pip, seed and peel? For starters it employs copy-writers and linguists who generate words and phrases that rationalise super profits. Then it encourages establishment of Foundations that push this agenda and when it has become part of both popular vocabulary as well as popular anger and unrest, float another set of words and phrases that convey the same theme....Full text
Women’s Movement and Communist Party: Basics Revisited In the progress from group marriage to pairing marriage it was women who took the lead because the former proved extremely oppressive and degrading for them. Ironically, with the development of productive forces (the iron plough for example), generation of surplus product ...Full text
Massive Protest in Assam Demanding Tarun Gogoi’s resignation In Assam, a massive protest is on demanding resignation of Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi after arrest of a Cabinet Minister of his Government. Ripun Bora was arrested by CBI on 3 June when he offered Rs. 10 lakh as a bribe to one of its officials to hush up the murder case of popular tea tribe leader Daniel Topno, who was killed in the year 2000....Full text JNUSU and AISA Join Kashmir Univ. Students in Protest In the occasion of the visit of the Indian President to the Kashmir Valley, Kashmir University students were asked to vacate the hotels without any prior notice on the pretext of the President’s security in the campus, where she was coming to inaugurate the Institute of Kashmir Studies....Full text Punjab Panchayat Elections Panchayat elections were held in Punjab in the month of May. Earlier elections for all the three tiers of panchayat hierarchy used to be held simultaneously, but this time round, the rules were changed and Gram Panchayat elections were held after results had been declared for the Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samiti polls. ...Full text CPI(ML) Protest Dharna in Durg On June 12, CPI(ML) staged a protest dharna at Durg Collectorate for ensuring jobs, safety and health-care for the agrarian labourers, and highlighting the demands of the dozens of the workers killed and injured in an accident at Akoli village when they were being taken to work in a sponge iron factory....Full text CPI(ML)’s Jharkhand State Conference: For a True Left Alternative The 3rd Jharkhand State Conference of CPI(ML) from 9-11 June 2008, concluded successfully amidst enthusiasm for further struggles, with central slogans of “prepare for a new Jharkhand for assertion of peasants and workers” and “workers-peasants call, end the reign of loot and repression.”...Full text AIPWA Protests Against Stripping of Dalit Mother and Daughter in Rajasthan In Sayar village in Ajmer district, a powerful Jat man repeatedly sexually harassed a 16-year-old dalit girl. When she resisted his advances, he along with another man broke into her house and tried to drag her off by force. ...Full text Women’s Assertion Rally by AIPWA in Patna The Bihar unit of All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA) organised an agitated and impressing rally on 30th May consisting of large number of women demanding to rein in the growing incidents of victimisation and rapes of women in the State. Despite scorching sun women came in thousands from various corners of Bihar to participate in the rally. ...Full text Protest Against Witch-hunt of Women Students in Kolkata Against the harassment of women students (activists of the Matangini Mahila Samiti) in Jadavpur on 7 June, AISA and Kolkata Nagarik Samonnay arranged a protest programme at Jadavpur on 8 June. ...Full text Dalits Assert Their Social Right in TN In Kodangipatti (a village panchayat in Dindigul dist. of Tamilnadu) Dalits, mostly agricultural labourers active with CPI(ML) and AIALA, asserted their social right on the question of performing Abhisegam (a ritual felicitating the deity) at the temple on par with the upper caste people. ...Full text Nationwide Outrage Against Oil Price Hike There has been nationwide protest against the UPA Government’s decision to hike the prices of petrol, diesel and cooking gas. CPI(ML) had given a call for an all-India protest on 6 June, and on that day and since, the party has organised independent protests and joined other Left parties in resisting the oil price hike....Full text
OBAMALAND What would an Obama presidency mean for the left? In choosing economic, foreign policy, and campaign advisors, and in policy positions on social security, health care, and taxation, Obama has been a centrist. He has been vetted and aided by corporate campaign contributors such as Illinois’s Crown family, with its massive holdings in defense, development, and the financial sector. ...Full text
‘All the problems have been solved. It appears that all the problems of Maharashtra have been solved. People are not only happy and contented but are looking forward to a magnificent future. There are no indebted farmers in the state now, no suicides, no deaths caused by malnutrition. All children go to school, there is no unemployment among the educated as there is tremendous growth of industry as well as the knowledge sector and everyone has been employed. There is no question of the unskilled or the uneducated being unemployed because there is no such person....Full text And then there’s always Bangladesh Bomb blast in Jaipur. What will we do now? Round up the usual suspects. Abdul, Rahman, Rahim, Karim, Salim. All you ‘illegal’ Bangladeshi immigrants within our borders. Report to the newest detention centres....Full text
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