Month: June 2011

Dear Editor,

The media wants to portray the defeat of the Left parties in West Bengal and Kerala as the defeat of communists. The people need to assess correctly as to whose defeat it really is.

Egypt continues to boil. The fall of the Mubarak regime, and the establishment of an interim government, has not satisfied the working masses. The working masses can see that the military, the backbone of the Mubarak regime, continues to rule and the interim government continues its anti working class, pro US, pro Israeli course. They are demanding a fundamental change in course.

On May 15, the Israeli Armed Forces opened fire on hundreds of protestors who had gathered at a check point on the border of Gaza with Israel, to commemorate Naqba (day of catastrophe), the founding of the Israeli Zionist state in 1948. At least 15 people were killed in the firing while many more were wounded.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry issued a "Consolidated Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Policy" effective April 1, 2011. This Policy is part of the on-going effort by the government to promote FDI by progressively removing restriction and reducing regulation of capital from abroad.

Tens of thousands of people all over Spain have been participating in sit – in protests in the second half of May 2011, occupying the Puerta del Sol in Madrid and many other public buildings and places.

After a 10 day strike that grounded Air India, and three days of negotiations involving the pilots, the Management of Air India and the Civil Aviation Ministry, the Indian Commercial Pilots Association withdrew their strike on May 6, 2011.

The industrial areas of Panipat contains mostly hosiery and yarn factories. Thousands of workers who work in this industrial area live in rented tenements in the neighbourhood.

The results of the elections to the assemblies of West Bengal, Tamilnadu, Kerala, Assam and Puducherry have come in. These elections took place against a background of growing anger and resentment amongst the workers, peasants, tribal people, progressive intelligentsia and other working people, about the worsening conditions of life.

On May 22, 2011, the fact finding team established by the Committee of concerned citizen-students and youth on the suicides of textile workers in the Tirupur district in Tamil Nadu presented and discussed their report among human rights activists, political activists and social activists in New Delhi.

Wheels India workers at Ranjangaon, Pune in Maharashtra are on strike demanding increased wages, regularization and equal remuneration for contract workers engaged in work of a perennial nature.