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Editorial |
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Kashmir All-Party Visit :
More Hype, Less Hope
Since June, the Kashmiri people have shown remarkable courage and endurance in the face of brutal repression, meeting each firing on mass protestors with fresh and unabated protests. After months of bloodletting of ordinary Kashmiri people in firing by security forces, the government at the centre finally took some political steps in Delhi – of these, the main one is an all-party meeting followed by an all-party delegation's visit to Kashmir.....Full text
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Commentary |
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Niyamgiri to Bellary, Polavaram to Konkan :
Stop All Destructive Projects Now
- Dipankar Bhattacharya
The cancellation of the Vedanta group’s ‘mining rights’ in the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha’s Kalahandi district surely marks a huge victory for the growing people’s movement against corporate invasion and plunder. The brave resistance of the local people, belonging predominantly to the Dongria Kondh and Kutia Kondh tribes, had begun to find wide-ranging support beyond the borders of Odisha and India. In July, the Annual General Meeting of the UK-based Vedanta group in London attracted angry protests by a broad spectrum of activists, and on August 16, the NC Saxena committee set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forests submitted a hard-hitting report documenting the numerous illegal activities of the Vedanta group in collusion with high-level Odisha officials......Full text
Politics of the 'Enemy Property' Act
Zahid Khan
Can property inherited by Indian citizens from their ancestors or relatives who migrated to Pakistan at the time of Partition be designated as 'Enemy Property'? The Supreme Court said in 2005 that the "Answer is (an) emphatic No." The erstwhile Raja of Mahmudabad had opted to go to Pakistan at the time of Partition; his son Mohammad Amir Mohammad Khan who remained in India waged a 32-year legal battle to claim the properties worth crores of rupees inherited from his father, which the Government had confiscated under the Enemy Property Act 1968.....Full text
Empty Stomachs, Full Godowns
- DB
Recent Supreme Court orders asking the government to take urgent steps to stop foodgrains from rotting away in godowns by arranging, if necessary, free distribution of grains among the hungry have once again exposed the callous response of the state to the shame of public hunger. ‘Food security’ was a key promise of the Congress during the 2009 Lok Sabha election – but the government has been delaying any legislation on this score on the plea of lack of rains and resultant crop failure.....Full text
Corporate Manoeuvres and
New Government in Jharkhand
D P Buxi
The political scene in Jharkhand has witnessed some paradoxical trends this month. Thousands of working people marched in streets throughout the state to make Jharkhand Bandh, called by CPI(ML) in support of All India General Strike call, a grand success on 7 September.....Full text
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Feature |
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Bihar Elections :
Time for Reality Check
(In this issue, we carry a curtain-raiser for the key issues in the upcoming Bihar Assembly elections, and a response to the recent much-hyped visit by Rahul Gandhi to Bihar. In the coming November issue we will carry the CPI(ML) manifesto, constituencies and candidates, as well as reports from the election campaign. – Ed/-)
Beginning from October 21, Bihar will go to polls to elect its next Assembly and government. Just before the announcement of the election schedule, the state witnessed a dramatic hostage-crisis lasting one full week, when the Maoists took four policemen hostage and killed a BMP constable – Lucas Tete, a tribal from Jharkhand – before eventually releasing the other three.....Full text
Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Mission Bihar’:
Posers for the Congress ‘Crown Prince’
Dipankar Bhattacharya
On the eve of the announcement of the Assembly election schedule for Bihar, the Congress ‘crown prince’ Rahul Gandhi addressed a couple of heavily publicised meetings at Saharsa and Samastipur, the nerve-centres of the Kosi and Mithila regions of Bihar. The meetings were advertised as a major milestone in Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Mission Bihar’ campaign for a grand revival of India’s grand old party in India’s poorest state.....Full text
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Cover Feature |
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All India General Strike:
Workers’ No-Confidence Motion Against UPA Govt.
The all India General Strike of September 7 called by the central Trade Unions met with an overwhelming response from the working class and the masses at large. Even sections of the media recognized it as a second ‘Bharat Bandh.....Full text
Strike Preparations
(Below are some reports from TN on the preparations and background issues in specific sections of workers that came to the fore in the Strike.)
Workers Collect 5 Lakh Signatures to Support Their Demands
AICCTU called for 5 lakh signatures to be collected calling for the September 7 Strike and in support of workers’ demands to control price rise, bring in amendments for trade union recognition, expedite Presidential assent for the Bill to Protect the Interests of Non-permanent Workers. As part of the campaign, 5 lakh pamphlets were distributed in the state to carry the message of the signature campaign and September 7 strike. The signature campaign met with an enthusiastic response.....Full text
Nokia Workers put
DMK Government in the Dock
Karunanidhi government boasts of bringing in Nokia to Tamil Nadu, pushing back states like Haryana and Maharashtra by offering attractive packages. Nokia was the third company in mobile phones production in the world after Motorola and Sony Ericsson before coming to Tamilnadu. But after coming to Tamilnadu Nokia has come to the number one position in mobile phone production.....Full text
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Update |
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Peasant Suicides in W Bengal
(A CPI(ML) team comprising Polit Bureau member Comrade Kartick Pal, Burdwan district committee member comrade Paresh Banerjee, AIALA West Bengal President Sajal Pal, and West Bengal Kisan Sabha President Annada Prasad Bhatttacharya visited villages in Burdwan district on 3 September to investigate cases of peasant suicides. Below is a summary of their findings by Comrade Kartick Pal.)
Burdened with debt, three peasants committed suicide on August 21 and 23 and on September 1 at Basantapur, Karotia and Purbatati villages in Block–I of Ausgram, Burdwan district in West Bengal. The area falls under the parliamentary constituency of former MP Somnath Chatterjee and is dominated by CPI(M).....Full text
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Film |
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Peepli Incorporated
While Peepli (Live) is a story set in Madhya Pradesh,
500-odd real Peepli villages exist.
Nandini Chandra
Anoushka Rizvi’s Peepli Live, the satirical film ostensibly on farmer’s suicide is remarkable, predictable and sad. I will start with the remarkable aspects. The film is able to paste the ethos of the nukkad natak on to a cinematic frame. There is wit, sarcasm, morality play symbolism, all played out in the exaggerated decibel of a street performance, such as the media jamboree and the close reading of Natha’s shit. The symbolism comes through in its deliberate allusion to characters named after Premchand’s village epic Godaan.....Full text
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International |
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Mosque at Ground Zero :
Islamophobia in the US
Shashwat Sinha
In Gainesville, Florida, Terry Jones, a pastor of a small insignificant church with hardly any following called for the “International Burn a Quran Day" on September 11th to mark 9/11. He threatened to burn 50 copies of the Quran, which is also his maximum number of following. His purported action was a manifestation of his hatred towards Islam which culminated in this threat over the proposed building of an Islamic Center near Ground Zero.....Full text
SA Workers’ Strike
‘Sound the Vuvus for Living Wage and Respectful Life’
(Dhiraj Nite, researcher at the University of Johannesburg, reports from South Africa on the 19-day long strike of teaching and health staff in that country.)
The teaching and health staff in South Africa went on strike on August 18. The primary and secondary schools as well as health centres (excluding the emergency services) were closed and the streets of townships all over the country brimmed over with the red T-shirt-wearing men and women. They sang, danced, shouted slogans, agitated, and picketed at the gates of hospital and school and in the neighbourhoods. An expert of South African labour history and sociology, Prof. Peter Alexander, says that "these comrades sing and dance to express their anger, too."....Full text
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Obituary |
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Obituary
Comrade Budhram Paswan
Comrade Budhram Paswan, an activist of Jagdishpur, Bhojpur passed away on 16 August of cancer. He was 56. His three sons, daughter and wife too are associated with the party.
Comrade Subodh Majumdar
Comrade Subodh Majumdar, a long-standing party leader in West Bengal, breathed his last at Gandhi Memorial Hospital at Kalyani after a long bout with heart trouble on 27 August. He is survived by his wife, daughter and son.
Comrade Dinabandhu Talukdar
Comrade Dinabandhu Talukdar of Namrup, Assam, passed away recently after a 3-year-long battle with prostate cancer. ....Full text
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Cover |
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Second Exile
(The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court is scheduled to announce its verdict on the Ayodhya title suit on 24 September, 2010. In anticipation of the verdict going against their claim, the Sangh brigade has already begun attempts to reignite the communal fire over Ayodhya. We appeal to people to rebuff any attempt by communal forces to whip up communal frenzy over the verdict. As the verdict approaches, Kaifi Azmi's poem 'Doosra Vanvas' serves to remind us of the horror of communal fascist frenzy symbolised by the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6 1992.)
When Lord Ram returned home from exile in the forest
He missed the forest very much as he entered the city
Seeing the crazed dance in his courtyard....Full text
Support the CPI(ML) Election Campaign in Bihar
Stand by the Fighting People of Bihar in their Battle for Real Change and Rights
Five years ago, the NDA-BJP alliance headed by Nitish Kumar rode the wave of resentment against the RJD’s prolonged reign of misrule, to come to power in Bihar with promises of development, change and an end to the cycle of crime and corruption. Today as Bihar gears up for another electoral battle, the Nitish regime has little to show except the corporate media-crafted 'Bihar Shining' brand. Increasingly what is being underlined is the continuity between the discredited RJD regime and the much-hyped Nitish regime.....Full text
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