The discussion in the meeting of the Steering Committee of the anti-PFRDA Bill movement has shown that more than one lakh workers will be participating in the Parliament March on 25th November. Reports from the states/circles indicate that large number of workers are coming from even distanct states. The number will be much more from the nearby states/circles.
The decision of the central cabinet to reject the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Finance, that (1) there should be an assured return, (2) allowing easy wihdrawal from the Fund and (3) that there should be a cap on the FDI has been strongly opposed by the Steering Committee. The workers are angry with the governments anti-worker attitude.
The Parliament March will start from Jantar Mantar at 1100 hours. Workers should assemble there by 1000 hours. Comrades Basudevacharya, Tapan Sen, Gurudas Dasgupta, Thampan Thomas and other leaders are expected to address the March.

I am giving below a press report on the jail conviction to Mr. Sukhram, former Communications Minister for corruption:
“New Delhi, Nov 19 (ANI): Former Telecom Minister Sukhram was today sentenced to five years in jail by a Delhi Court for taking Rs. 3 lakhs as bribe to give a lucrative contract to a private firm in 1996.

Sukhram, 86, a cabinet colleague of Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao, was held guilty on Thursday under various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Indian Penal Code.

The CBI, in its charge sheet filed in 1998, had accused Sukhram of showing undue favour in awarding the cable supply contract to HTL. Sukhram had been put on trial along with HTL chairman Devinder Singh Choudhary who died during the trial.

In 2009, Sukhram had been held guilty of possessing disproportionate assets worth Rs. 4.25 crore.

In 2002, he was awarded a three-year jail term under the Prevention of Corruption Act in a separate case relating to equipment supply for causing a loss of Rs. 1.66 crore to the state exchequer. (ANI)”.

It is said that all of the 13-14 Communications Ministers, except one or two,after the neo-liberal policies have been introduced were either chargesheeted,convicted, politically lost or did not get the post of minister afterwards. I do not want to mention the names. The fact is that the fast and huge money involved and the pressure by the MNCs for favours have created a situation where no minister is spared from disaster.

The Steering Committee elected in the Delhi Convention against Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) Bill, introduced in the Parliament, will be meeting tomorrow, 19th November at the AIRF office to streamline the March to Parliament Programme. More than one lakh workers are expected to participate in the March. As per the present decision the March will start from Jantar mantar.
The leaders of Confederation of Central Govt. Employees, All India State Government Employees Federation(AISGEF), All India Railwaymens federation (AIRF), All India defence Employees Federation (AIDEF), National federation of Postal Employees (NFPE), BSNLEU are organising for maximum mobilisation in the March.
A strong rebuff should be given to the government to take away the defined pension scheme for the workers and imposing contributory scheme which will never be accepted by the workers.

The dharna organised by the United Forum today, 18th November has been a huge success considering that thousands of workers participated in the same across the country. As per the reports received so far, dharna has been conducted in almost all the SSAs and Circles. The workers are restive that some important issues are unnecessarily delayed by the management, instead of settling the same.
In Corporate Office also, the dharna was good. The General Secretaries of the United Forum also participated in the dharna at C.O.
The United Forum has warned the management that if issues are not settled further programmes will be organised. Already UF has given a call for hunger strike on 28-29 of November.
The BSNL managment has to urgently settle the long pending issues.

The Metro experience of Delhi, Kolkata etc. has inspired other cities to think about introducing Metro services. Now the central government has stated that it will consider to construct Metro in cities where the population is more than 20 lakhs if the concerned state governments are prepared to accept the responsibilities. These cities include Lucknow, Kanpur, Patna, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Pune, Surat, Indore, Nagpur, Kochi, Coimbatore and Kozhikode.

The time has gone when our politicians and people’s representatives in the Parliament and legislatures were ordinary people or middle class. Now many of our M.P.s are crorepatis. In the Rajya Sabha crorepatis are majority with 58%. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh is also a crorepati. See the lsit:
1. T.Subbarami Reddy Rs. 259.3 crore
2. Karan Singh Rs. 57.89 crore
3. Abhishek Manu Singhvi Rs. 50.00 crore
4. Vijay Mallya Rs. 41.4 crore
5. Manmohan Singh Rs. 4.30 crore

The International Rating Agency, Fitch has stated that the PSUs BSNL, MTNL and small private telcos will suffer losses in 2012, while the major private telcos will continue to improve their position.
According to Fitch, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and Reliance should improve in 2012 while Tata Teleservices, Uninor, Aircel, Sistema Shyam, Etisalat and videocon will suffer. BSNL and MTNL also.
This is based on some facts and figures available with them. But with regard to BSNL they have not counted one thing – the commitment of the 2.75 lakh workers to ensure that BSNL is improved and strengthened, “Customer Delight Year 2011-12”.
Let all of us try to make the prediction of the Fitch wrong. Strengthen BSNL!

The UPA government is trying to save the blackmoney holders who have stashed hugh amount of black money in the swiss Banks. It has already received the details of 700 Swiss HSBC Account holders, including account numbers, names and addresses as given in the Passports.It is months since these information has been received by the Govt. But it was keeping these information secret stating that disclosing them will be against international law. But the fact is that these information were not received through legal routes and hence law does not come in to the picture. The government don’t want to disclose, probably because powerful persons are involved whom it want to save.
But now the government is compelled to disclose the names of these black money people. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance is expected to ask the govenment to disclose the names. Will the government disclose?
I am of the strong opinion that the Government has to disclose and take serious action against them for cheating the country and violating the laws of the land. I is also to be enquired from where this money has been received.

Serious and hectic preparations are being organised by the workers to make the Parliament March on 25th November against the PFRDA Bil a grand success. The Steering Committee met earlier and has planned all details. It is expected that more than one lakh workers of Central / State governments, teachers, Railways, defence, Postal, BSNL and pensioners will be participating in the same. The March will start from Jantar mantar and the lakhs of signatures obtained against the PFRDA Bill will be submitted to the President and Prime Minister of India.
The Standing Committee has already sent back the bill to the government. The Cabinet has finalised the same, but without accepting some of the favourable recommendations of the Standing Committee. The government is aggressively working for getting it passed in the Parliament, so that the lakhs of crores of rupees of the pension corpus can be utilised by the Fund Managers and the private corporates for increasing their profits. But there is no assured benefit to the workers who contributed to the fund.
There is no doubt in the mind of the employees that this bill has to be thrown out and should not be allowed to be passed by the Parliament. The Parliament March on 25th November is one more step towards this target.
Participate in full and express your protests.

The United Forum of BSNL Unions have expressed its strong protest to the management at the undue delay in settlement of the problems and has decided to go on agitational path. Even the decisions taken in the National Council are not implemented even after months.
As per the decision of the last meeting of the United Forum, Day long Dharnas will be organised today, 18th December, in all SSAs/Circles and at Corporate office. Next programme is Hunger Strike on 28th and 29th of December.
The top management may be worried about the ITS absorption issue. But it does not mean that they can keep quiet without doing any work either on development side or on the genuine issue of the workers. Even after a detailed Charter of Demands were given to the management, no fruitful discussions have taken place. This position can nat be accepted by the workers. Simply requesting to postpone the agitational programme does not have any meaning.
Make the programmes successful with massive participation to compel the management to settle the isuues urgently, with top priority.