Today, 23rd April is celebrated as ‘World Book Day’. It is the 400 death anniversary of William Shakespeare, one of the greatest writers of all times. He was born in 1564 and died on 23 April 1616.

A meeting of BSNLEU was held Nagour on 21  April 2016 participated by a good number of workers at GM office premises.  Com. Pukhraj Gurjar District President  presided. Coms. V.A.N.Namboodiri, Founder General Secretary and Patron BSNLEU, Ashok Pareek Circle Secretary Rajasthan, Vijay Singh All India Org. Secretary, District Secretary Kishnaram Babel, Acting Secretary Jagdish Vaishnav, Hari Narain, ACS, Madan Singh treasurer and other leaders attended and addressed. Though the meeting was arranged at short notice majority of the employeers were present in the scorching sun. In Nagour BSNLEU had got majority in the past and will get much more majority now.

Bikaner has always been a very stronghold of BSNL Employees Union. A big SSA of Rajasthan, it had a long tradition of mighty trade union struggles. It was here that in CG employees strike that the Railway workers became martyrs.
The verification campaign meeting held at Bikaner GM office premises was presided by Com.Kamal Singh, Circle and District Union President. Large number of employees participated. It was encouraging that even my retired employees and a few disabled comrades also came. Comrades V.A.N.Namboodiri, Founder General Secretary and Patron, Ashok Pareek, Circle Secretary Rajasthan, Vijay Singh, CHQ Organising Secretary, S.N.Nagal, Hari Narain, Asst. Secretary, Madan Singh, Circle Treasurer, Gulam Hussain Dist.Secretary, Hem Nath Sidh Dist. Vice President and other leaders attended and addressed.
Bikaner leaders assured that in the SSA, BSNLEU will cross 90% and more in the verification. Congratulations!

History was created  in 1917 when the revolution took place in Russia and the first ever communist government in the world was formed. It was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The leader of the revolution was Comradee V.I.Lenin, the revolutionary who put the Marxist theories effectively and got the imperialist czar thrown out.

22nd April 2016 is the 146 birth anniversary of the great leader. He passed away on 21st January 1924.

The Railways proudly announces that senior citizens will be provided with lower berths when requested. But my experience shows that this is an empty promise. During the last two months, I have travelled by train several times. But except on one or two occasions, I always got the upper berth, even when booked sufficiently in advance.
Today also I got only upper berth.
The difficulty of senior citizens to climb to the upper berth is to be considered while allotting berths.

The privatisation wing of central government is working 24 hours a day. Though disinvestment department as such is not existing, the central ministers are directly dealing with disinvestment/privatisation. Of course, they have to please and repay the Adanis and Ambanis who have contributed huge election funds.

Now the target is sea ports. Finance Minister Arun Jaitely in his budget proposed corporatisatin of ports, of course, as the first step towards privatiation. But facing the heat from the powerful port labour unions, no further steps  were taken.
Now Nitin Gadkari Shipping Minister has come with the idea of implementing   Public Private Participation and handing over opetation of ports to private companies for modernisation and ‘competitiveness’.
Handing over all govermment assets to private corporates is the main programme of NDA government. This has to be resisted and defeated.

BSNL DOT pensioners at Bhubaneswar met on 20 April 2016 under the Chairmanship of Com. P.R.Das, senior leader and Circle President of BSNLEU. The meeting discussed the pending issues of DOT and BSNL pensioners. Com. V.A.N.Namboodiri, Advisor, AIBDPA and Patron NCCPA explained the demands of pensioners, recomendations of VII CPC and memorandum given by NCCPA/ AIBDPA etc. The present position of 78.2% IDA Pension fixation, medical allowance etc. were reported. Many comrades participated in the discussion, including Com. Sahdeb Biswal, A.C.Mohanty and others.
The meeting decided to form AIBDPA in Odisha Circle. Com.Sheikh Hussain was unanimously elected as the Circle Convener to organise AIBDPA and hold a Circle Convention.