Sensing an opportunity in national politics, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Wednesday saw the emergence of Left and democratic forces as an alternative to occupy the space being created by the failure of coalitions led by the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party. “The recent political developments showed the failure of the two combinations – the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) and the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) – to consolidate. The Assembly elections to the five States have reflected this trend. As more and more, the bankruptcy and venality of the present order becomes apparent, the people are looking for an alternative…[and] can be provided only by the Left and democratic forces”, party general secretary Prakash Karat said in his inaugural address at the 20th Party Congress in Kozhikode. Taking on the Congress and the BJP for pursuing neo-liberalism, he said there is little to choose between either party on corruption, considering the alleged nexus of the BJP-led Karnataka government with mining mafia and the Congress-led Central government with the 2G spectrum allocation scandal. While endorsing the need for an effective Lokpal Bill to curb corruption among public servants, he said the fight should also be directed against the neo-liberal regime. He promised that the CPI(M) will bring in a whole range of measures including electoral reforms to help curb money power in politics. The party and its leadership is clear that the brick and mortar for an alternative would come from first strengthening CPI(M) – expanding its base and influence across the country, working for Left unity – and then rallying other democratic forces to prepare a Left and democratic platform that can challenge the existing political arrangement. The futility of the Congress and the BJP to convert the national political arena into a two-party system was underscored by veteran Communist leader A.B. Bardhan, who said the people were not ‘falling prey’ to such an attempt. In his speech, Mr. Karat mentioned losses in the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, but refrained from reiterating reasons behind it. He said the party has examined and identified the shortcomings in the political and organisational sphere and taken steps to correct them. He said the party had a solid mass base in West Bengal and was willing to counter the violence unleashed against its workers and supporters. On the ideological clarity the Congress seeks to give to the party, Mr. Karat said: “The CPI(M) has always believed in applying Marxism-Leninism to concrete conditions of India, to chalk out its revolutionary path. We have never tried to emulate models abroad. We have to constantly update our ideological understanding and equip ourselves to meet the challenges of the contemporary era”. Starting Wednesday, the party over the next five days will discuss draft political, ideological and organisation issues. The last session is slated to discuss for the first time an amendment to its Constitution setting a three-term limit for members, who occupy the post of secretary from the local to central committee level.Courtsey: Ganashakti)

Former MP and CITU secretary, Dipankar Mukherjee, wrote the following letter to minister of labour and chairman of CBT (EPF), Mallikarjun Kharge, on March 23, 2012 seeking urgent intervention to restore the rate of interest for EPF to 9.5 per cent that had been slashed to 8.25 per cent by the finance ministry. A copy of the letter has also been sent to Central Provident Fund Commissioner, R C Mishra.

IT is really shocking that while the rate of interest for General Provident Fund (GPF) has been rightly hiked from 8 per cent to 8.6 per cent vide a notification by the Ministry of Finance dated March 19, 2012, the rate of interest to Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) members had been unilaterally slashed by the same ministry a few days back from 9.5 per cent to 8.25 per cent, ignoring the demand of the employees’ representatives in the Central Board of Trustees EPF meeting held on 22.12.2011 to maintain the interest rate at 9.5 per cent. As you may be kindly aware, this is an unprecedented decision whereby EPF rate has been pegged at a lower level than GPF. I am afraid this will be quite embarrassing to CBT, headed by you, coupled with strong resentment of 5 crore workforce covered by EPF.

The decision of finance ministry to reduce the EPF rate of interest becomes more irrational and unacceptable as a similar hike in interest rate from 8 per cent to 8.6 per cent has also been effected in Special Deposit Scheme (SDS) where a large proportion of EPF corpus is invested. As a matter of fact in the CBT meeting on 23.12.2011, employees’ representatives had urged the government to increase SDS rate of interest to facilitate declaration of higher rate of interest for EPF.

In view of the above, I urge upon you to immediately take up the issue with finance ministry on behalf of CBT so that the unjustified decision of reduction in EPF rate of interest is reviewed and interest rate of 9.5 per cent is restored, in order to avoid industrial unrest caused by the unilateral decision of the finance ministry. This may please be treated as ‘MOST URGENT’.

Load-shedding from today has been ordered by the Kerala Electricity Board from today, 2nd April. It was only expected as the UDF government did not take sufficient care about the systematic arrangement of electric supply. During the entire five years of LDF government, there was no power cut at all, due to its continuous and sustained efforts to ensure electricity supply to the people.

From today onwards, there will be load shedding for half an hour every day between 1830 and 2230 hours. The government failed utterly in getting additional supply from the central pool also.

It was real summer rain.

I am now at Calicut.  After visiting the Exhibition in connection with the CPI(M) Party Congress  and chatting with the comrades there, I went to Arya Bhawan restaurant and had snacks instead of dinner. When I came out of the restaurant,  all of a sudden a  dust wind  started followed with very heavy rain.I stood in the veranda of a shop to avoid getting wet. It was heavy rain and all searched for some place to stand without being drenched.

The rain continued for about half an hour. The streets were all full of the rain water. All those people who have come to shopping and enjoying the Sunday got completely drenched. But all were happy that at least the rain has come.Every year one or two such rains will be there in summer.

I was also happy although I got completely wet and  had to wait a long time to get a bus to my residence.

Summer rain is a consolation to reduce the heat at the time of examinations.