Trinamool Congress government’s policies in West Bengal are leading to suicides of small farmers, a reign of terror in the Jangalmahal area and a curbing of academic and trade union rights. Its student activists beat up students and teachers who do not profess loyalty to the party. Will the CPI(M) which led the previous Left Front government for 34 years and paid the price for its insolence and corruption...
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Distress and death by Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay
West Bengal: An agrarian crisis looms over the State as farmers commit suicide in spite of a bumper crop. THE topic of suicide figured repeatedly in Safar Molla's conversations with his neighbours a few days before his death. The 18-year-old marginal farmer from Kaltikuri village in Bardhaman district's Bhatar block talked about it quite casually, in fact even jocularly. Everybody in the village knew he was up to his neck in...
More »Revised rural job scheme wages only by April by Sreelatha Menon & Dilasha Seth
Unlike the dearness allowance that accrues to the salaries of workers every six months without any hassle, the linking of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) wages to inflation or the Consumer Price Index for agricultural wages has not led to a smooth annual revision. The revision for NREGA wages is supposed to happen every January after it was introduced last January. However, even a month into the new year, the...
More »Court tells Centre to resolve wages issue through talks by K Balchand
Bench refuses to stay Karnataka High Court order In a major setback to the UPA government at the Centre, the Supreme Court on Monday refused to stay the Karnataka High Court order for payment of minimum wages to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) workers and suggested that the government, instead of appearing adversarial, should resolve the issue through a consultative process. The only relief the government secured was...
More »Five years on, Nandigram feels forgotten & betrayed
-IANS Five years after a movement that catapulted it into the national spotlight and spelt the beginning of the end of the 34-year Left rule, Nandigram is still counting the losses of the bloody anti-land acquisition movement. Development is at a standstill and many of those who had been at the forefront of the movement and lost their family members say they were used as cannon fodder against the mighty Left, which...
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