CPIM protest dharna against Coal block allocation scandal

Hundreds of  CPI(M) activists from Delhi, Ghaziabad and Noida gathered  on Jantar Mantar to protest against coal blocks allocation scandals. A dharna was organised which was later on converted in a public meeting.

The meeting was addressed by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Com. Brinda Karat, CC member and Delhi State Committee Secretary Com. PMS Grewal and from Secretariat  K M Tiwari, Com. Asha Sharma and Com. Anurag Saxena.  The public meeting was later on joined upon by 4 members of Parliament.  The meeting was chaired and conducted by Delhi State Committee Secretariat member Com. Vijender Sharma.

Speaking on the occasion Com. Brinda Karat said that out of 142 allocations, 70 to 76 were made to private companies without following proper procedures. Most of the private companies captured the land and assets to increase their value in the share market. However none of them have mined the allocated areas.  Both Congress and BJP have helped private parties like Jindal and Reddy Brothers. She also pointed out that coal is a national natural resource which should not be opened for private parties to destroy it. Com. PMS Grewal in his address said that in most of the scandals Congress has blamed the allies or the other ministers keeping Manmohan Singh clean. Now it is very much clear that Manmohan Singh himself is involved in this. Com. Ramchander Dom stressed the need to fight corruption both inside and outside the parliament. In the end, an effigy of the Prime Minister was burnt.

SFI All India Conference Begins with a Massive Students Rally in Madurai

The four-day 14th All India Conference of the Students Federation of India (SFI) began with a huge students rally, which painted the Madurai city in white.  The torch relay taken out from Kumbakonam, in memory of children who lost their lives in a school fire, and the flag taken out from the house of immortal martyr Com. KV Sudheesh, who was brutally murdered by RSS fundamentalists reached Madurai on Monday. 

The conference began with students’ rally and a public meeting. CPIM PB Member and former SFI president Com. Sitaram Yechury inaugurated the public meeting. SFI national general secretary Ritabrata Banerjee said that the conference would discuss ways to prevent various attempts of the government towards commercialisation of education. SFI would launch a struggle demanding conduct of election to students’ union in the educational institutions of Tamil Nadu. CPI(M) veteran leader N. Sankaraiah, party MP T.K. Rengarajan, SFI national president P.K. Biju, and MLA Bala Bharathi were among those who spoke.

The conference will focus on key issues that confront the education scenario in the country -- commercialisation and centralisation. It will come out with documents spelling out its stand on the various initiatives of the Union Government to commercialise education, along with an agenda of action.

Addressing a press conference SFI’s general secretary, Ritabrata Banerjee, said that the government was keen on opening up the Indian education sector to foreign universities. This should not happen in a country where only about 10 per cent of people in the 17-25 age group had access to higher education. In developing nations, it was about 24 per cent.

The government, he said, was not inclined to increase budgetary allocation for education but claimed that the entry of foreign universities would improve the quality of education. Mr. Banerjee pointed out that a list of 144 probable institutions entering India did not contain any premier university like Oxford, Cambridge or Harvard. Among the list, 44 institutions were declared illegal in their country of origin. Eminent educationists opposed the entry of foreign universities in India.

The SFI, Mr. Banerjee said, was opposed to the move to centralise educational institutions and wanted education to be in the State List.

The conference would also discuss democratisation of educational institutions and equitable access to education. Though the country, which had the highest number of child workers in the world, had a Right to Education Act, the government did not provide monetary allocation for its implementation, he said.

SFI’s president, P. K. Biju, MP, said that the organisation strongly opposed nine Bills on education waiting for ratification by Parliament. The government’s move to privatise education would affect children belonging to rural areas and backward sections of society.

SFI’s State president, K. S. Kanakaraj, accused the Tamil Nadu government of diluting the Right to Education Act by not taking any steps to enforce it. Both the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam did not oppose the legislations sought to be implemented for privatisation of education in the country.

Maintain Friendly Relations with Sri Lankan People

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:

 

The CPI(M) expresses its concern at the hostility displayed towards the people from Sri Lanka who are visiting Tamil Nadu. It is very unfortunate that two football teams of schoolboys from Sri Lanka who went to play in Tamil Nadu have been sent back at the instance of the state government. Some pilgrims from Sri Lanka visiting a church in Tiruvavur were harassed and they had to return. The CPI(M) condemns this incident.

 

We have to maintain people to people relations and foster friendly relations between the peoples of the two countries. Whatever the differences and opposition that exists regarding the Sri Lankan government’s approach to the Tamil question in Sri Lanka, nothing should be done to disturb people to people relations.

 

The CPI(M) appeals to all sections of the people and the political forces in Tamil Nadu to ensure that friendly and harmonious relations are maintained with the people of Sri Lanka.

Com. P Sundarayya Birth Centenary Seminar in Trivandrum on 5th September

A One day Seminar is organised in Trivandrum on the 5th September, by A K G Centre for Research and Studies on the occasion of Com. P Sundarayya Birth Centenary. The venue of the seminar will be AKG Hall. CPIM General Secretary Com. Prakash Karat will inaugurate the Seminar. Com. Pinarayi Vijayan will preside over the inaugural function. CPIM P B members Com. B V Ragahavulu, Com. M A Baby, Com. Kodiyeri Balakrishanan, Eminent scholar Dr. V K Ramachandran will speak on the ocassion.

CPI (M) condemns order of ‘no work no pay’ imposed by the Maruti Management

The Haryana unit of the CPI (M) condemned the summary dismissal of over 500 workers & order of  ‘no work no pay’ imposed by the Management of the Manesar-based Maruti plant.

CPI (M) Secretary Inderjit Singh told that “such highhandedness and dictatorial conduct of the Maruti management had been mainly responsible for the July 18 happenings in the plant”.

Criticising the “continued reign of terror let loose jointly by the management and by the Haryana Police against the workers and their family members”, he said that the arrest of some “innocent” workers who were returning from the Rohtak-based Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) office on Saturday by the Gurgaon police was condemnable.

Mr. Inderjit Singh said: “It is astonishing that the same Haryana Police which was reportedly shielding a person like ex-Minister Gopal Kanda accused of a serious crime had displayed extra interest in making indiscriminate arrests of more than 60 workers without any credible inquiry.”

“We demand that the Haryana Government intervene immediately in getting the dismissal orders withdrawn, scrap the order of ‘no work no pay’ &  stopping police repression” he added.

Com. P Sundaraya Birth Centenary observed in Tripura

The Birth Centenary function of Com. P Sundarayya, was held in Agartala. The 20th Congress of the CPI-M, held in Kozhikode in Kerala, had decided to hold a year-long observance of the birth centenary of the party's first general secretary P. Sundarayya from May 2012. Com. P Sundarayya was the general secretary of the CPI-M from its inception in 1964 and played a major role in establishing the party as a leading force in the Left movement in the country.

The function was organised by CPIM Tripura State Committee. Three day seminar from 31st August to 2nd September was held in Agartala Town Hall. Book release, cultural fuction and poster exhibition on the life and deeds of Sundarayya was also organised as part of the function. Com. Prakash Karat, General Secretary CPIM Inaugurated the function. He said that the UPA government has been giving opportunities to multi-national and private companies to loot India's natural resources, including coal while inaugurating the function. 

Demanding probe into the coal block allocations, Karat said: "The UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government is providing scope to multi-national and private companies to ransack country's resources." He said that coal industry and coal mines had been nationalised in 1973. "India has the fourth largest coal reserves in the world. Without proper auction and bidding, coal reserves cannot be allocated. Both previous BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) and Congress-led governments have been trying to distribute the precious natural resources illegally."

Criticising the UPA government's foreign policy, Karat said that the US has been dictating who should be India's friend and with whom India should maintain diplomacy."Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went to Tehran to attend the Non-Aligned Movement summit, but India, on US pressure, reduced 40 percent oil import from Iran. India-Iran ties were excellent in the past, but have fallen now," he said.

"Communist movement must be in the Indian context. We must organise rural proletariat. That was the vital agenda of the builder of the communist movement in India (Sundarayya)," he said. 

On the First Day of the seminar CPIM Politburo Member and Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said," In order to protect people from hurdles, we need to strengthen our party”, he urged the workers. “There were attempts to weaken the party in the state. There were similar attempts in West Bengal and Kerala”. “Anti-Left forces like wild animals had plunged upon the then Left Front government in West Bengal. A larger such assault is being formulated against Tripura’s Left Front government”, Sarkar added. The Chief Minister alleged that some anti-progressive forces kept alive terrorists to use them against the Left Front government in the coming days. He had a word of appeal to the supporters. “The communists have to maintain discipline”. A plea for self-rectification, a call to consolidate the party’s vote bank, a cry to give a fight to reckon with the CPM leader has sounded off the poll bugle. Coming down upon the Congress controlled UPA II government, he asserted that with the weakened strength of the Left Front, the union government is now adopting anti-people policies and surrendering to imperialist forces. Sarkar claimed that Left parties are emerging as alternative during this crisis period. He further said that the state would continue to be a bastion of the red flag, the banner of the CPM -led Left Front. 

On the Second day of the function, CPIM P B Members Sitharam Yechury and Com. B V Raghavulu spoke on the contributions made by Com. Sundarayya to the communist movement in India. 

West Bengal Observed Historic Anti-Imperialist Day: Lakhs Protest Against US Imperialism

Kolkata witnessed another historic rally of hundred thousands people that roared against imperialist aggression over third world nations. Peoples mostly from the districts of South Bengal participated with full of enthusiasm to mark their protest against US aggression and to commemorate the Anti Imperialist Day of 1st September. Left Front like every previous year organized the anti-imperialist rally this year too. All state leaderships of Left Front led the rally from the front. The rally, as was scheduled, started sharp 1pm from Rani Rashmoni Road. The face of the rally took more than 2-30 hours to reach Deshbandhu Park when the tail was waiting at Rani Rashmoni Road. The rally was fully decorated with flags, festoons, and most importantly the mobile tableaus that remained most attractive part of the rally this year too. It was exactly 4-30 when the last tableau along with people reached Deshbandhu Park. Like the city of Kolkata, another urban hub of West Bengal Siliguri too witnessed an equally big anti imperialist rally where people from different corners of North Bengal made that a grand success. 

The prime slogans pronounced by the historic rally were:

(i) US Militarization over developing countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and countries of Latin America;

(ii) Financial Imperialism through FDI in retail sector, privatization of Insurance sector, Pension funds etc. over countries like India that causes intrusion in the internal economy of these developing countries;

(iii) Deaths of millions of people and huge loss of property in sponsored terrorist activities by ally powers like Israel etc.

(iv) So the final slogan was to safeguard political, financial and social sovereignty across nations.

While addressing the crowd at the end of the rally the CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee drew a whole backdrop of Imperialism primarily led by USA to correlate the magnitude of the contemporary imperialist aggression in the world. Having mentioned the Atom Bomb attack over Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a birth of today’s US led imperialism, Bhattacharjee explained that the nuclear attack against Japan was to throttle the battle for freedom in different countries after the Second World War, primarily either against the colonial rulings or the nationalist struggles. The subsequent attack against Vietnam and Korea were among the deadliest invasions of US and allied forces. US imperialism killed progressive African icons like Patrice Lumumba and many others. In Latin America US time and again attacked countries like Chile, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama etc.

They devastated Afghanistan; brutally killing Saddam Hussein they demolished Iraq but could not find the mass destructive weapons; they sponsored internal terrorism in Libya, Syria etc in the name of founding democracy in these countries. Basically they want global OIL control, so they terrorize oil rich countries, said Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

Now the danger of imperialism comes in a different direction when US and allied countries target China and trying to set base in India. We won’t tolerate US base in India to blockade India and would launch bigger protest.

Like Militant terrorism the USA is now promoting financial imperialism in countries like India and other third world nations. US imperialism is now intruding in every internal economic sector of the third world or developing nations. Bank, Insurance, Pension Funds, Food Security are nowadays facing US policy controlling and the Central Government of India is trying to promote such intrusion. Who will control agriculture? If shopping malls are going to sell food and agricultural products our farmers will lose control over its own market forever. They are already facing such intimidation, averred Bhattacharjee.

India is trying to set up a strategic partnership or alliance with USA. What strategic alliance is this? We will protest against any of such alliance. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had made her visit in this state. It was unprecedented for any Indian state that nobody since independence had faced such a situation. Why did she visit Writers’ Buildings? This is a very alarming situation. We need to be more cautious, said Bhattacharjee.

Left Front Chairman Biman Basu while congratulating the people for making the rally a great success said that US led force are using our markets to meet their internal crisis. They are trying to control our economy. So we must keep our struggle on against such imperialist aggression. If any of US official comes to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of great Indian Philosopher Swami Vivekananda on 12th January next year, the state will definitely revolt.

SFI West Bengal State Conference

 

34th West Bengal State Conference of  Students Federation of India was held at Alipurduar in Jalpaiguri district from 24th August to 26th. 512 delegates participated in the conference. A student rally was organised on the 24th August which was inaugurated by Com Biman Basu. CPI(M) state secretary and Left Front Com. Biman Bose called up the student leaders to fight for the democratic rights of the people.Com. Biman Bose said the student leaders need to fight for the democratic rights of the people. SFI general secretary Ritabrata Bandopadhyay said like there was need for good student leaders in the country.

The conference resolved to protest against the commercialization drive in the education sector by the Mamta Banarjee government in the state and also to protect the the pro people education policy of the earlier Left Front governments. The Students Federation of India also criticised the violence and attacks on teachers in different colleges in West Bengal allegedly by Trinamool Congress."We will take up the issue of violence and attacks on teachers in different colleges in West Bengal allegedly by Trinamool Congress and will soon start an agitation on this," SFI general secretary Ribabrata Banerjee said at the concluding day of the conference.

The conference elected a 89 member state committee and a 27 member state secretariat. 53 members in the committee are fresh faces. The conference also elected com. Madhuja Sen Rai and Debjyothi Das as the President and Secretary respectively.

DYFI Maharashtra State Conference

  

DYFI Maharashtra State Conference ahead of the All India Conference to be held at Bangalore in the second week of September, was held in Mahur, Nanded district from August 23 to 27. Representing One Lakh members in the state, 300 delegates from 16 districts participated in the conference. The  conference was inaugurated by DYFI All India Secretary Com. Tapas Sinha.

The conference strongly criticized the policy of Maharashtra Government to completely withdraw from the service sector and thereby helping the corporates to gain control of the service sector like education and health. The Conference passed a resolution condemning the policy of the government to establish Public Private partnership, which in turn has rights of the common man. The conference also decided to raise huge struggle against the privatization of water supply. The Conference also asked the state government through various resolutions to fill all the vacancies in the Government sector, declaration of complete youth policy.

 The conference also elected the new office bearers. A 35 member state committe with 13 member state secretariate is also formed. Com. Bhagvan Bogje from Aurangabad and Com Preethy Sekher from Mumbai were elected president and secretary respectively.Com Bhasker patel from Raigud is elected as the treasurer.The Concluding session of the conference was inaugurated by CPIM State Secretariat member and DYFI founder president Com. Mahendra Singh 

CPI(M) Holds Mass Dharna in Mangalore Demanding Basic Needs

Demanding to resolve various basic problems of the city, CPI(M) Mangalore city committee organized a mass protest in front of the Mangalore City Corporation on Monday August 27.

Addressing the gathering  Com.  Sunil Kumar Bajal said the homeless people in the city should be identified and their application for housing needs should be considered by the MCC. He added that the condition of many roads in various wards and drainage system should be improved. Though roads have been concretized, construction of footpath is a mirage. Disposal of garbage should be done at least twice a day in city limits and once a day in suburban areas. He also came down heavily on the MCC’s apathy over epidemic diseases being spread. 

Slaughter house project should be taken on priority, thereby to safeguard the right of people to eat non vegetarian.

The processions started from different areas of the city such as Kankanady, Yeyyadi, State Bank and Urwa Store  at 10 am which converged in front of the Municipal Corporation, Lalbagh.The protestors gathered in front of the MCC building and shouted slogans demanding to fulfill their needs.

CPI(M) district secretary B Madhava, Com. Vasanth Achar, corporator Jayanthi among others were part of the protest.