A Thunderbolt from the sky..A thunderbolt that could make change.A Thunderbolt that will tear apart the black clouds of imperialism and communalism that had covered India.Yes change is inevitable..Change will Come..
Nine major trade unions, including the INTUC, AITUC and CITU, have called for an all-India strike by workers on September 7 to protest against “inaction” of the Union government to look into their genuine problems. The leaders of the union met a INTUC headquarters in New Delhi and made a joint statement regarding the preparations for the strike.
The unions said some federations of bank employees unions too would participate in the dawn-to-dusk strike.
AITUC general secretary and MP Gurudas Dasgupta warned that the unions would launch a “march to Parliament” in February during the budget session if the UPA government failed to meet their demands.
CITU president M.K. Pandhe appealed to all workers to make the strike a success.
Though INTUC’s decision to join the strike along with outfits like CITU and AITUC for the first time has raised quite a few eyebrows within the Congress, its chief Sanjeev Reddy appeared unruffled. Mr. Reddy made a scathing attack on UPA government. “The rising prices of essential commodities have hit the working class. The poor workers of this country are suffering. They are starving,” he said.
To a question as to how the Congress-affiliated INTUC was joining the Left trade unions, Mr Reddy said: “If Congress could form a government with the Left’s support, then what is the harm in joining hands with them for an agitation.” Mr Reddy said the trade unions have been forced to chalk out a joint strategy because of the worsening scenario for the working class. “The government’s failure to control inflation and its indifference to the trade unions are matters of grave concern,” he said
CPIM Dharampur Local Committee office in Lalgarh area, which was closed after Maoist-Trinamool attack 14 months ago was reopened. Hundreds of Party sympathizers and supporters including women attended the opening ceremony. Party activists under the leadership of CPIM Lalgarh Zonal Secretary Com Anju Panday came as a rally and hoisted the red flag in front of the office. After hoisting of flag a meeting was conducted and the leaders hailed the heroic resistance made by the cadres to reopen the office and to make the Maoists terrorists teach a lesson. Lalgarh party office was completly shattered and demolished by the Maoist-Trinamool goons. 21 Party cadres were killed by this unholy nexus team. They are now been marginalised after the people had seen their true face.
Prakash Karat, General Secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist), had a meeting with the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, today to appraise him of the serious situation prevailing in Kashmir and what needs to be done immediately.
On the basis of a visit to Srinagar and discussions with a wide section of the people, Prakash Karat submitted a letter to the Prime Minister.
Dear Dr. Manmohan Singhji,
I had visited Srinagar recently on August 22 & 23. I had met people from various walks of life and tried to get an assessment about the serious situation prevailing in Kashmir.
I would like to place before you some of the issues which are essential to be taken up without delay.
You had in the meeting of all parties from Jammu & Kashmir expressed your pain and grief at the loss of young lives in Kashmir. So far sixty six young boys and girls have died due to firing by the Central paramilitary and police forces. Those who have died are in the range of nine to twenty five years.
There has to be an immediate end to the resort to police firing to control the stone pelting crowds of youth. The Central and state governments should issue strict instructions to the security forces not to resort to police firings and use other measures to counter the situation. Every death is further inflaming the situation and brining ordinary people out into the streets to protest. Unfortunately, no distinction is being made between tackling the stone-throwing youth and the tactics adopted to fight the extremists resorting to terrorist violence.
I have got the medical reports of a number of those who have been injured in the police firings. Many of them will suffer from permanent disabilities. It is incumbent upon the Centre and the state administration to provide for adequate compensation to those injured in the police actions and rehabilitation measures for those who have permanent disabilities.
In order to help restore normalcy, it will be appropriate for the administration to release all young people who have been arrested and jailed if they are not facing any serious charges. I wish to point out to you that many juveniles are in jail. They should be released from prison.
The enforcement of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is another major source of unrest. We have been asking for the amendment of the AFSPA to remove certain draconian provisions. But immediately to solve the problem, the Disturbed Areas Act should be withdrawn from Srinagar as this will make the use of AFSPA redundant in the city. As you are aware, a similar step was taken in Manipur when the Imphal region was exempted from the Act.
Many of the bunkers manned by the paramilitary forces in the Srinagar localities are unnecessary. They were set up at the height of the militancy in the early 1990s. They should be removed.
You had assured earlier that there would be zero tolerance for human rights violations. But unfortunately this is not being seen as being implemented on the ground. Action has not been taken against those guilty in the Pathribal incident. The recent Machil fake encounter case should be taken up and the guilty brought to book. Without such actions, it will not be possible to restore faith in the people that the State will not tolerate excesses and violations of human rights.
There is urgent need to generate employment for the youth in Kashmir. This must be accompanied by the rehabilitation of the thousands of former militants and those who were victims of militancy who need jobs and other assistance.
Given the major economic losses suffered due to the continued curfews and hartals for the past two months, the government has to compensate and revive trade and other economic activities of different sections of the people. Similarly, the disruption of education of the children due to closure of schools and other institutions should also be addressed.
Ultimately, the Kashmir issue cannot be resolved without a political settlement. There has to be a sustained dialogue with all sections of the people of the state. You had taken some initiative in your previous term in government. But they have not been carried forward.
This is the time to take a bold initiative for a political dialogue with all sections in the state. Only you can initiate such a process by announcing that a dialogue can be held with all sides without preconditions.
In this connection, I would like to stress that our Party feels that it is only by recognizing the special status of the state and assuring the Kashmiri people of their identity that a solution can be found. This requires a new political framework in which the bedrock is maximum autonomy.
Tackling the extremely serious situation in Kashmir where the mass of the people are deeply alienated from the IndianState should be accorded top priority. I request you to take necessary steps in this direction.
CPI-M activists staged demonstration to launch their state-wide Jail Bharo (Fill-the-Jail) Campaign in Patna on August 30, 2010 in support of their demands that included security, relief, land reforms and pricerise.
It is to be noted that 83 per cent of the dalits and 66 per cent of the backwards are landless and it is they who could benefit most from the recommendations. Those championing the cause of social justice for dalits and backwards are making common cause with the feudal lords who are bent upon thwarting any attempts at land reforms in Bihar.
Since then, Bihar has witnessed a bizarre spectacle of bourgeois leaders floating a forum called Kisan Panchayat and spewing venom against Nitish Kumar and Bandopadhyay. In their rally at Patna on May 9, leaders of the RJD, LJP and JD(U) warned the Nitish government against implementing the Bandopadhyay report or face the consequences. This has brought the land reforms agenda to the fore and now it is the Catch 22 situation for Nitish Kumar. He can neither reject nor accept the commission’s recommendations. The BJP, partner in the Bihar government, has openly opposed land reforms, threatening to pull out of the government if land reforms were implemented.
But the Left parties have taken up the issue. A campaign has been launched all across Bihar for the implementation of the commission’s recommendations. As part of this campaign the Left took out Bhoomi Sudhar Jagran Jathas simultaneously from Darbhanga and Begusarai from May 14 to June 14. The month long campaign launched under the joint banner of Kisan Sabha (affiliated to the All India Kisan Sabha) and Khetihar Mazdoor Union (affiliated to the All India Agricultural Workers Union) in Bihar culminated in a massive turnout of peasants and agricultural workers, including rural women, at Patna on June 14. On this occasion, they saluted the memory of martyr Comrade Ajit Sarkar who fell to the bullets of landlords’ goons on this very day in the year 1998.
It is to be noted that the Kisan Sabha, Khetihar Mazdoor Union and other organisations have come together to fight for implementation of the Land Reform Act and the recommendations made by Bandopadhyay commission in this regard. As reported in these columns earlier, the Bandopadhyay commission has brought up the land reform agenda to the fore and has put the Nitish government in a fix. But the latter has meekly surrendered before the feudal forces who have ganged up under the banner of Kisan Mahapanchayat. The Left parties and particularly the CPI(M), Kisan Sabha and Khetihar Mazdoor Union has jointly decided to carry on the struggle for land reforms.
The June 14 rally of peasants and agricultural workers in the state capital marked the height of mobilisation of the rural poor for the possession of government, bhudan and ceiling surplus land. They came from the fields of Bihar where they have been relentlessly fighting against the evictions and all sorts of machination by the police-landlord-land mafia nexus. In the nineties, the CPI(M) and Kisan Sabha had liberated thousand of acres of land and since then the rural poor are in possession of those lands. The month long campaign has generated a new hope among the landless and the homeless people of Bihar who constitute around 90 per cent of the state’s population.
Holding that the state government was indifferent toward problems being faced by apple growers, Communist Party of India (Marxists) today threatened to launch a mass agitation, should the government not act within a week to improve the road network and regulate post-harvest operations.
Speaking to the media persons, Sanjay Chauhan, state committee member CPI(M) said that there was complete chaos in the marketing operations during peak apple season time as black marketing was being resorted to by suppliers of packaging material.
Shortage of transport vehicles was not being met and hapless small and marginal farmers were having to pay stiff freight charges that were 50 to 100 % higher than the freights announced by the government, he said.
Due to breakdown of rural road network in Chopal region, there were over 30,000 boxes awaiting transport facility to access the market, he claimed. Kuldeep Tanwar, State Secretariat Member CPI(M) said the government had abdicated its regulatory role and the farmers were facing the brunt.
“The government needs to treat the situation as an emergency as the years livelihood of about 3 lakh farmers was dependent up apple crop,” he said. Recalling an earlier agitation in 1992, when 3 apple growers had died in police firing, Tikender Panwar, member secretary said, “unless the government acts within a week’s time, CPI(M) would be forced to launch a mass agitation.”
Left parties CPI, CPI(M) and CPI-ML (Liberation) today formally announced their decision to contest 200 of the 243 Assembly seats in alliance in Bihar where elections are due later this year.
“The three Left parties have firmed up an alliance and decided to contest 200 of the 243 Assembly seats in Bihar,” State CPI(M) secretary V K Thakur said here. The Left alliance will highlight the issue of the alleged refusal of the NDA regime to introduce land reforms and implement bataidari law and corruption in the implementation of development and welfare schemes. The left alliance will also make the alleged failure of the NDA government on agriculture and industry front a major poll issue.
State CPI secretary Badrinarain Lal and CPI-ML leaders N K Prasad and Santosh Sahar attended the meeting in which the decision was taken, he said. “We have decided to identify the seats to be allotted to each of the Left allies within next ten days to facilitate announcement of candidates,” Mr. Thakur said.
THE REAL PICTURE: Trinamool Congress MPs demonstrating outside the Parliament House in New Delhi on Tuesday alleging CPI(M) atrocities in West Bengal. In the photograph, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar (second from left), displays a poster saying it is a camp of “CPI(M) goons” in the Jangal Mahal area of West Bengal. It is actually a picture (at right) of armed Maoists outside a camp in the forests of Dantewada, Chhattisgarh. That file photo, taken by our Staff Photographer Akhilesh Kumar, appeared in this site on March 15, 2010. Photo: R.V. Moorthy
Even as West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattcharjee on Tuesday described the Trinamool Congress of being a party of “grotesque lies and slander,” an MP of the party, demonstrating with some of her colleagues outside the Parliament House in New Delhi, was seen sporting a poster with a picture apparently depicting Maoists in one of their training camps in Dantewada.
The poster, borne by Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, representing Barasat in West Bengal's North 24 Paragans district, read: “All camps by CPI (M) goons in Jangal Mahal areas must be disbanded.” Below this was a picture showing men with their weapons.
The same picture appeared on the online edition of The Hindu on March 15 this year (http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article245722.ece) under the heading “Centre Warns of Retaliatory Attacks by Maoists” with the caption: A Maoist training camp in the forest of Dantewada district.” The Trinamool MPs were demonstrating against alleged atrocities by the CPI(M) in West Bengal.
This begs the question: Was the Trinamool Congress MP in question (Ms. Ghosh Dastidar) misrepresenting facts and passing off a picture showing armed Maoists in a camp in Dantewada as one of CPI(M) goons in the Jangal Mahal area (a forest area in West Bengal spanning the three south-west districts of Paschim Medinipur, Bankura and Purulia)?
The Trinamool leadership has been claiming that CPI(M) activists have been entering the Jangal Mahal area and setting up camps for their armed activists under the cover of the on-going security operations against the Maoists there.
Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee has even demanded that the security operations be withdrawn even as she has claimed that they were being used by the CPI(M) to gain ground in the region, particularly in those areas of Paschim Medinipur district considered to have been the hot-bed of Maoist activity.
On Monday, the eve of his retirement, Director-General of Police Bhupinder Singh told journalists at the State Secretariat that “no evidence of the presence of armed supporters of the CPI(M) has been found in Lalgarh and its vicinity.”
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the Trinamool Congress for “being a party of grotesque lies and slander,” describing its chief Mamata Banerjee a “practised liar who utters falsehoods every single day.”
“Here is a political party [Trinamool Congress] that is surviving on lies….How long will the people of West Bengal accept these lies? I believe that they will on no account accept the grotesque lies and slander of this party,” Mr. Bhattacharjee said at a Martyrs' Day rally to commemorate the death of 80 supporters of Left parties in a protest demanding food in the city in 1959.
Cites examples
Mr. Bhattacharjee cited several examples of “unfounded claims” made by Ms. Banerjee _ the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was responsible for incidents such as the devastating fire at the Stephen Court, the Jnaneswari Express derailment, the accident in Sainthia and the disruption in her convoy on her return from Lalgarh.
“Lies, all lies,” he emphatically declared to a stadium full of supporters, who responded with a thundering applause.
‘Party sans agenda'
The Trinamool was a party “without a policy or agenda” and it solely depended on Ms. Banerjee's word. The State had already suffered many losses because of them, Mr. Bhattacharjee said.
Referring to the Trinamool-led agitations in Singur and Nandigram, he said: “Everyone in
West Bengal knows the losses that the State has suffered. Shall we accept more of these injustices? The nexus between the Trinamool and Maoists began in Nandigram where we could not defeat them and had to retreat……It will have to be seen if we can limit them to the Jangalmahal region or will the joint army of the Trinamool and Maoists convert all of West Bengal into Jangalmahal.”
“We will set it right”
Several people in the State had begun to believe in the lies being spread by the Trinamool and it was the responsibility of the supporters of Left parties to reach out to them and convince them otherwise, he added.
Chairman of the State Left Front Committee Biman Bose said the Trinamool was trying to project themselves as “friends of the poor,” but instead were representing the interests of landlords and the old order.
Effort pays:Additional Joint Collector G. Joshi Babu and other
officials offering fruit juice to fasting SFI leaders in Kadapa on Tuesday
Additional Joint Collector G. Joshi Babu, Deputy Director of Social Welfare Madhusudana Rao, executive director of BC Corporation and superintendent of ST welfare officer Chandrasekhar assured fasting SFI functionaries that they would examine the SFI report and resolve problems enlisted.
They promised to provide drinking water supply and drainage facilities in schools and hostels and put up complaint boxes in all the institutions. They assured to secure release of about Rs. 7 crores towards pending fee reimbursement for BC and EBC students and Rs. 1 crore for SC and ST students. They offered fruit juice to the fasting SFI functionaries.
Twenty seven vacant teacher posts in Kasturba schools would be filled within 10 days, Mr. Joshi Babu assured. SFI leader Sivaram said assurances given for several years remained unfulfilled. Advocate Sampath Kumar said girls lacked protection in residential schools.
CPI(M) leader N. Ravisankar Reddy, SFI leaders Sankar, Siva and others were present.
The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) expresses its grave concern at the continued police firings in Kashmir adding to the loss of lives of young persons. The police firing on August 30 has killed one youth in Anantnag and injured five in Lal Chowk area of Srinagar. 15 persons are also reported to have been injured in Kulgam and Bandipore where police resorted to tear gasing and lathi-charge.
This continued resort to lathi-charges, firing and tear gas shells have only delayed the task of finding a settlement to the Kashmir issue.
The CPI(M) had already demanded that an all party delegation visit Kashmir without any delay and commence dialogue with all sections of people without any pre-conditions to find a solution to the problem.
The CPI(M) hopes that the government of India as well as government of Jammu & Kashmir will immediately take initiative in starting the process of dialogue with a view to find a just solution to the Kashmir issue. More delay will only aggravate the situation in the state and add to the difficulties.
