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Editorial |
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Ruling Class' Big-Power Pretensions
Punctured by Grim Ground Realities
As we approach India's 63rd Independence Day, we are surrounded by our ruling class' hype about India's impressive growth rate; its status as 'strategic partner' of the mighty America; its prestige as the host of the Commonwealth Games; its national currency, the rupee, which now has a dollar-like symbol of its own.....Full text
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Commentary |
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Stop Killing and Insulting the Protesting People of Kashmir
DB
kashmir is once again exploding in anger. At least eleven civilians including a nine-year-old young boy was killed by paramilitary forces in the month of June. As we go to press (6 July 2010), there are reports of at least four more deaths, including a woman and a teenager, in a fresh spurt of CRPF atrocities on protesters in Srinagar. The killing of a child in police firing would evoke angry mass protests anywhere in India. But in Kashmir valley, the state is so afraid of the people and so contemptuous of any notion of democracy that the people are not allowed to protest even when they lose their near and dear ones in police firing or in fake encounters by the armed forces. The familiar cycle of killings-protests-more killings-curfew is being repeated once again all over Kashmir. Anantnag, Baramulla, Sopore, Srinagar – it is again curfew raj all over the valley......Full text
Massive Treasury Fraud Rocks Bihar
Nitish Kumar's Propaganda Balloon of Good Governance Punctured by Rs, 11K Fraud
DB
In parliamentary parlance, MLAs or MPs belonging to the government side are often described as comprising the ‘treasury benches’. The treasury is obviously quite central to the notion of any government. Highlighting the centrality of the treasury to Nitish Kumar’s theory and practice of ‘good governance’ in poll-bound Bihar is a staggering Rs. 11,412 crore treasury fraud. Successive annual reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) have been pointing to the growing discrepancy in amounts withdrawn from the Bihar treasury and accounts submitted by the Bihar government. With the Bihar government refusing to take any corrective action, in an unprecedented move, on July 15 the Patna High Court ordered a CBI probe into the issue of unaccounted withdrawals......Full text
Sompeta: Shame on Brutal Bloodshed,
Hail the Peasants' Resistance and Victory !
DB
Once again, we have been witness to an unequal battle – thousands of women and men, defending their land and livelihood against corporate land grab armed with nothing but sticks and chilli powder facing a thousands-strong police platoon armed with batons and guns. Sompeta in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh is the latest to enact this heroic scene of resistance – seen earlier at Kalinganagar, Singur, Nandigram, Dadri, Jagatsinghpur and many other places. Four fishermen were killed in the police firing while over 60, including many women, were reportedly severely injured in the brutal lathicharge.....Full text
Karnataka:
Lokayukta, Mining Mafia and Industrialisation
V Shankar
More than the resignation of Santosh Hegde Lokayukta of Karnataka, the developments subsequent to it have caused many skeletons to tumble out of the state’s political cupboard. The whole episode that unfolded has once again highlighted the mining mafia’s octopus grip in the entire state politics.....Full text
Oil Prices:
Deregulating – In Whose Interests?
Tapas Ranjan Saha
On 25 June, in yet another cruel blow to the common man reeling under surging food prices and unabated inflation for more than two years now, the UPA Government declared a steep rise in all petroleum products – the second significant hike in the last six months. While the first hike four months back was effected using the traditional instruments of customs and excise duties, the hike this time has been brought into effect through a regime change in oil pricing by finally deregulating oil prices so that “the pricing of Petrol and Diesel both at the refinery gate and the retail level will be market-determined.” ....Full text
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Eye Opener |
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The Rich Get Richer at the Cost of the Poor
[India's ruling class, especially in the era of liberalisation, are keen to project an image of India as a country on the make; a country with a dollar-like symbol for its currency; a country that sups with the great powers of the world. Naturally, such a ruling class is reluctant to acknowledge the embarrassing fact of the sheer unvarnished poverty of much of its population......Full text
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Updates |
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National Convention to be held to Launch
All India Left Coordination
(Statement issued by CPI(ML) Liberation, Communist Party Marxist (Punjab), Lal Nishan Party (Leninist), Maharashtra, Left Coordination Committee, Kerala on 18 July 2010, at New Delhi)
our organizations of the Left - CPI(ML)(Liberation), CPM Punjab, Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) Maharashtra, and Left Coordination Committee, Kerala – held a meeting in Delhi on 17 July 2010, to discuss the need for a struggling Left platform to give voice to the growing popular anger against ruling class policies in the wake of steep price rise, acute agrarian crisis, massive unemployment, state repression and the all-out attack on workers’ rights and civil liberties.....Full text
Punjab:
Flooded Fields, Callous Government
[In the wake of severe floods in Punjab, a CPI(ML) team visited the affected areas. One team comprising the party's Punjab Secretary Rajwinder Rana, State Secretary of Mazdoor Mukti Morcha Punjab, Bhagwant Singh Samao, President of Punjab Kisan Union Sukhcharan Singh Danevalia and Vice Presidents Ruldu Singh and Meet Singh visited affected villages of Mansa while another team lead by RYA Punjab General Secretary Hasmeet Singh, Cashier Ajaypal Natt, Chandigarh unit head Sawinder Singh, Rajinder Hodla and Amrit Pal Singh visited affected villages of Sangrur district. Hasmeet Singh reports. Ed/-]
The fields of Punjab are flooded, and its farmers and labourers in great distress. But it seems that Scotch whisky rather than flood waters figure higher on the priorities of the Government and the ruling class parties. Even as Punjab fights the flood, 8 of its MLAs from the ruling Akali Dal and the BJP including the Assembly Speaker Nirmal Singh Kahlon and one MLA from the opposition Congress made a visit to Scotland to study whisky manufacturing processes there!....Full text
People' Protest against Land Grab and Displacement
An AIPWA Fact-finding Team Report
Sarojini
A water reservoir is due for construction by the Department of Water Resources of Jharkhand, on the Raisa river at Gitildih village of Humta Panchayat under Bundu block of Ranchi district. The reservoir incorporates a large dam, spillway, outlets, two canals and other structures. According to the information received from Bundu’s Divisional Irrigation Officer, the sanctioned amount for the project is Rs. 52,26,80,700. This project requires 11, 16, 000 square metres or 112 hectare of land is to be acquired, of which 75.60 hectares of land will fall in the submergence area. The people of Humta, Gitildih, Hesada, Kajibiru and other villages of the Humta panchayat are furious at such a project that will dislocate them en masse. They apprehend a brutal and forcible eviction from their land – as has been the norm of for land acquisition all over Jharkhand.....Full text
Singur March
Tapan Batabyal
The history of the Singur movement is well-known. The fundamental issues now are return of the lands taken away forcibly, reclaiming the lands turned waste by the Tatas and establishing the rights of recorded and unrecorded share-croppers. The people of Singur are in no mood to allow these demands to be swept under the carpet of distribution of a few stalls or the proposed railway coach factory. The people knew our party's position independent from both the LF and Trinamul Congress (TMC). Being aggrieved at TMC’s betrayal of these issues, the people began keeping themselves aloof from the TMC rallies and mass meetings and a section of them approached us to raise the issues at the state level. This constituted the backdrop of our 15th July Singur March, which started as a procession and culminated in a mass meeting.....Full text
In Memory of the Martyrs of Bathani Tola
Sudhir Suman
Bathani is a little hamlet where 14 years ago, on 11 July 1996, a private army of upper caste landlords brutally massacred 8 children, 12 women, and 1 man from the landless Dalit community living there. And now, 14 years later, on 11 July 2010, a memorial was erected there. In this sculpture by the young artist Manoj Pankaj, we see the martyrs breaking through stone to rise and become visible. In the centre is a child holding a butterfly on whose wings a hammer and a sickle have been carved.....Full text
Political Literacy Campaign among Women in Bihar
Saroj Chaubey
To mark the centenary year of International Women’s Day, the Party decided to make all-out special efforts to induct new members from among women as well as to take effective steps in the direction of building women cadres. To this end, it was decided to conduct a women’s ‘political literacy’ campaign in the month of June on three subjects: ‘Our Revolution, Our Party’; ‘Women’s Movement – Basic concepts and Our Tasks’; and ‘Panchayats and Women’s Assertion.’....Full text
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Document |
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Censored Truths
Report on Undermining and Betrayal of PESA
[Legal rights of adivasis have come into being through a long and hard process of struggles. Like the legal rights of working class, or land ceiling laws that benefit the peasantry, laws intended to safeguard the rights of tribals are, however, observed more in the breach than in actual implementation. But Governments cannot even allow studies commissioned by its own Ministries to mention this truth!....Full text .
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Feature |
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Robbing the Commons for
the Games of the Wealthy
Radhika Menon
Brothers and Sisters this magnificent structure is now ready
Now you may leave…
With your full strength
You cut the ground
Laid a deep foundation
Many of your comrades
Were even buried beneath the earth...............
In the wake of the 1982 Asiad Games in the national capital, Gorakh Pandey wrote his scathing satirical poem that accurately reflected the refined menace with which the government and the elite evicted the workers from the very heaven which they had created with their sweat and blood. In 1982, migrant workers had been herded from across the North Indian states to quickly erect flyovers, bridges and stadiums. Long before night shifts became the norm of city life, as preparation for the 1982 Asian Games began, workers were sweating day and night to build some of the prominent landmarks of the city. Many lost their lives in accidents on construction sites where labour and safety laws were routinely violated. Soon, however, the city that they had constructed turned its back on them and they were unceremoniously sent packing even before the opening ceremony! .....Full text
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Working Class |
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All India Rural Workers’ Strike
Rajiv Dimri
For the very first time in India, rural workers as a class organised themselves for a synchronised protest across the country on 7 July 2010.
In this strike, the rural workers asserted their right for Rs 200 wage for 200 days, kerosene and ration for Rs 2, ten decimal homestead land, immediate changes in the BPL categorisation and automatic inclusion of all agricultural labourers, marginal and small peasantry, artisans and contract workers who are employed in government schemes-campaigns for an honorarium, like Asha and anganwadi workers. A special relief package from Central government in view of the sky rocketing prices and reduction in fuel prices and essential commodities were part of the key slogans around which AIALA organised the rural poor. In areas where corruption and loot in the panchayats became an issue, the participation saw manifold qualitative difference in the militancy of the protests. In several places, contract workers participated enthusiastically. Women were present in large numbers and added a militant dimension to the assertion of the rural workforce. The strike brought together the urban poor with the rural poor in a new way. Across the country, in solidarity with the strike, CPIML units, AICCTU, AIPWA and other organisations of the urban poor and government employees participated in dharnas and burnt effigies of the central and state governments.....Full text
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Cover |
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No More Hiroshimas and Nagasakis! No More Bhopals!
Say No to Civil Nuclear Liability Bill!
Say No To 'Strategic' Slavery to US Imperialism!
On August 6 2010, it will be 65 years since the world's first atomic bomb was exploded when the United States flattened the city of Hiroshima in Japan, deliberately killing tens of thousands of civilians. Three days later, the US bombed Nagasaki. The victims of the bombings died a terrible death; the survivors were maimed, poisoned and deformed for generations to come. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are stark reminders of the US' willingness to perpetrate the worst possible acts of terror in order to secure its imperialist hegemony. They are also reminders of the horrors that nuclear weapons and even civilian nuclear disasters can cause.....Full text
Nagarjun Birth Centenary Year
Cultural Journey to Birthplace of People's Poet Nagarjun
To mark the beginning of the birth centenary year of Nagarjun, the Jankavi (People's Poet) of Hindi, Jan Sanskriti Manch organised several events in his memory.
The third State Conference of JSM's Bihar unit, held in Samastipur on 25 June with the theme 'Against the culture of loot and lies, for creativity and struggle', centred around Nagarjun. On this occasion JSM Bihar's magazine 'Samkaleen Chunauti' was launched and its inaugural issue, dedicated to Nagarjun, was released by JSM National General Secretary Pranay Krishna.....Full text
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