Contents

Bihar’s Struggle for Justice, Dignity, Democracy 

Nitish Kumar was lionised by the corporate media as the man who was bringing Bihar to the 21st century. The bad old days of crime and caste massacres were past, we were told, and Nitish’s ads and hoardings announce that Bihar is witnessing “waves of revolutionary change.” But unfolding events are turning Nitish Kumar’s slogan of ‘development with justice’ on its head, and the CM’s gospel of ‘good governance’ is giving way to unfettered police raj....Full text

SIT Closure Report on Gujarat

Shameful Cover-Up of Modi’s Role

The closure report filed by the Supreme Court-appointed SIT on the 2002 communal violence in Gujarat has belied all expectations that it would help justice be done, by shamefully attempting to cover up the role of CM Narendra Modi....Full text

The Long Road To (In)Justice

SC Judgment On Pathribal and

Meera Visvanathan

The recent Apex Court judgment on the Pathribal killings in J&K, and the Doom Dooma killings of Assam, has come as a disappointment for many who hoped that it would provide cause to enforce greater accountability among the armed forces....Full text

People With No Country?

Sucheta De

Around 2000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, from 623 families from the northern Rakhine state in Myanmar have been in India for the past two years, forced to wander from one place to another in search of shelter and survival....Full text

Ambedkar Cartoon Debate :  A Perspective

(A note issued by the All India Students’ Association (AISA) and Left and Democratic Teachers’ Forum (LDTF))
A raging controversy has erupted over a 1949 cartoon of Ambedkar and Nehru in a NCERT political science textbook, leading to an uproar in Parliament, and an announcement by the HRD Minister that the textbook would be withdrawn from circulation till the cartoon was removed.

We strongly condemn the attack by a mob on the Pune office of Suhas Palshikar, one of the authors of the textbook. Political leaders should stop orchestrating such violence, that smack of the right-wing assaults on dissenting voices. Debate on educational content is welcome, but cannot be dealt with through physical attacks. There is an urgent need to view the matter at hand in the light of reasoned debate. The note below is our stand on, and contribution to, this debate....Full text

Rising Injustice, Crime and Repression in Nitish’s Bihar

With every fresh, glaring instance of feudal criminality and mockery of justice, the Nitish Government’s slogan of ‘development with justice’ is being exposed. ...Full text

Special Feature

Heinous Assassination of Com. Chandrashekharan
CPI(M) In the Dock  

The brutal killing of Comrade TP Chandrashekharan, Secretary of the Idathupaksha Ekopana Samithi (Left Coordination Committee, LCC) Kerala on the night of 4 May, has shocked democratic people in Kerala and all over the country....Full text

Update

Land Struggle in Purnea

On the occasion of CPI(ML)’s 4th Purnea District Conference, a rally was held at the district headquarters on 15 March with the slogan – “Plant Flags on All Government, Sikmi (sharecropping) and Bhoodan Land; Integrate All Poor People With the Struggle for Land and Livelihood!”...Full text

CPI(ML) Statement on Hillary Clinton’s Kolkata Visit

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to West Bengal is fraught with dangerous political implications for India’s sovereignty. Clinton spoke of West Bengal’s crucial place in the ‘Silk Route’ of economic and trade relations, and is said to have made forays on several policy matters including sharing of Teesta waters between Bangladesh and West Bengal....Full text

Solidarity With Nepal’s Mass Organisations

The 6th National Conference of the All Nepal Women’s Association (ANWA) (affiliated to the CPN-UML) was held at Pokhara from 20-23 March. On ANWA’s invitation, an AIPWA delegation comprising AIPWA General Secretary Meena Tiwari and National Executive Member Sarojini Bisht attended the Conference....Full text

Film

Songs That Won’t Be Silenced

Kavita Krishnan

Anand Patwardhan’s new documentary Jai Bhim Comrade is an epic that tells the tale of dalit oppression, resistance, politics, and cultural expression;a tale of great ugliness, and also of great beauty and power....Full text

International

Voters’ Anti-Austerity Mood in France and Germany 
Parnal Chirmuley

Recent election outcomes in national and state elections in France and Germany indicate that the resentment against austerity measures has made itself felt politically....Full text 

Tribute

Remembering Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955)
Tariq Ali

(Excerpted from Counterpunch) 

Saadat Hasan Manto died in Lahore in 1955. He was forty-three years old. The life of one of our greatest short-story writers had been prematurely truncated. I was eleven years old at the time. I never met him. I wish I had. One can visualize him easily enough. In later photographs the melancholy is visible. He appears exhausted as if his heart were entrenched with sadness. In these his face displays all the consequences of a ravaged liver....Full text