Guruvayoor Sri Krishna Temple, in Kerala, is one of the famous temples in the whole country. It is visited by thousands of people every day. All Hindus, irrespective of caste, are allowed entry. But this was not the case earlier. Only caste Hindus were allowed entry.
On 1st November 1931, Comrade A.K.Gopalan, veteran communist leader and later the opposition leader in the first Parliament, led a jatha to the temple and sat on hunger satyagraha for days together demanding entry of the temple to all castes of Hindu religion. He was attacked and severely beaten up by the high caste Hindus, but he continued his satyagraha. The satyagraha had great impact.The Kochin Raja and the temple authorities were compelled to open the temple to all Hindus as a result of the agitation.
The agitation was supported by Mahatma Gandhi and leaders of the Independence movement.

Recently, there is a calculated move on the part of the UPA government and top politicians in power to discredit the RTI and the RTI activists. This is only natural since the government has been put on tender hooks several times in the recent past due to the information acquired by individuals and NGOs which exposed some ministers and bureaucrats. One instance is the release of the letter written by the Finance Secretary regarding the involvement of the former Finance Minister P.Chidambaram in approving the 2G auctions.
It was very unfortunate that the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh himself, in the Conference of Information Commissioners on 13th October 2011, almost attacked the RTI and its utilisation by the activists and NGOs. He stated that the RTI Act required a critical look in view of the undesirable situation of public authorities flooded with vexatious demands for information having no bearing on public interest. He also felt that they adversely affected the process of the government.
In fact, this is an open threat that the government is going to make some amendments in the RTI Act 2005. The Government brought the Act with much fanfare and got the credit. The Act was well appreciated by the people also. Now the government feels that the people should not have the right to know how the government is functioning. This attitude of the Government is completely wrong and dangerous.
But somehow, the strong protest from various sections and the media compelled the Government to declare that no amendment is going to be made to the RTI Act. So far, so good. But let us be careful.
The need of the hour is to pressurise the government to ensure that the provisions of the RTI are effectively implemented. Anything less than that will be strongly opposed by the people as an infringement on their right to information,

The National Manufacturing Policy announced by the Government of India on 25th October 2011 is nothing but an anti-people, anti-worker policy intended to give the employers unbridled freedom to violate all labour laws in the country and to give the corporate and big business the opportunity to grab thousands of acres of valuable land at throwaway prices.
Announcing the National Manufacturing Policy (NMP), Shri Anand Sharma, Minister of Commerce, Industry and Textile claimed that the NMP aims at increasing the share of the manufacturing to 25% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2022, which at present is only 16%. He also claimed that 100 million additional jobs also will be created. The main point in the NMP is to create a few National Manufacturing and Investment Zones (NMIZs), the minimum area of each which will be 5000 hectares. The first such NMIZ will be in the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). The Minister said that no cultivable agricultural and forest land will allow to be acquired for NMIZs. He also stated that the issues and concerns raised by the Environment and Labour Ministries against the policy have been attended to.
It is an agreed fact the policy itself has emanated from the failure of the government with regard to formation of the Special Economic Zones(SEZ). Huge outcry and agitation sparked off in connection with the acquisition of land in many states by the farmers and land owners, who were forced by the government to vacate their cultivable land. The tribals were forced to flee from their homes in the forest areas acquired. The compensation given was minimal. Such large scale acquisition violated the environment rules. The labour laws were completely flouted by the managements in the SEZs. No tangible growth was seen except that the corporate and managements were able to grab land at abysmally low rates. The people lost their land.
The NMP has given full freedom to the management to hire and fire. The Labour Department will not be able to intervene in the labour issues in the NIMZs. The managements will employ mainly contract workers in place of regular employees to cut down wages and to deny labour rights. The Government is assuring that the labour rights will be protected, but what will happen is very clear from the experience of the SEZs earlier.
The claim of the government that the GDP in the manufacturing sector will increase by 9% and that 100 million additional jobs will be created by the NMP in a decade is nothing but bluff. In order to reduce the opposition from the people and the working class, such false claims are made.
No central trade union has been consulted while forming the policy, though they are important stake holders. In fact, leaders of all the Central trade union s, including INTUC, have severely criticised the the New Manufacturing Policy for its anti-labour stand. Mighty protest actions can be expected by the working class against this anti-people, anti-worker policy. The government should not proceed with this anti-people policy which of course is part of the neo-liberalisation policy.

Since the start of the so called ‘telecom revolution’ in the 1990s, all the decisions taken by the government have been in support of the private companies. From allotting the mobile licences only to the private companies leaving aside the DOT and also MTNL, changing the Licence charges to the Revenue Sharing System to the present allotment of 3G and BWA Spectrum, the Government always helped the private companies overtly and covertly. 2G allotment scam is only a small part of it.
Now the private companies Airtel, Vodafone and Idea have been caught illegally providing 3G services in circles where they have not got licence. As per the licence agreement, any company can give 3G service only in those circles where it had got the 3G licence. But the above three companies made a cartel, auctioned for separate circles by paying less amount than PAN India and now is providing services all over India.
TRAI has stated that this is against the licence terms. DOT has also stated that this is illegal. But why no action is taken against these erring companies? It means that the interests of the private companies are more important to the government than implementing the laws of the land! This has to be strongly protested, exposed and defeated.

After it has become crystal clear to every body that the Air India / Indian Airlines have come down to the present position only due to the wrong and anti-PSU policy of the government and the then Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, the Government is making announcements every day that it is making efforts to bail out the company.
In today’s newspapers it is reported that the Group of Ministers (GoM) have recommended an amount of Rs.25,000 crores to Air India to rejuvenate it. The amount is to be paid within the next ten years. It means about Rs. 2,500 crores only in a year. Air India has a debt of about Rs. 42,350 crores including the Air Craft purchasing loans, payment to be made to the oil companies, to the air-port operators etc. And the Government is only thinking of giving a pittance of Rs 2,500 crore!
At the same time, the government is continuing to decimate the Air India, even stripping of its profitable routes. The latest report is that more than five highly profitable route of Air India from Thiruvananthapuram and Kochin to foreign destinations, including Gulf countries, are going to be allotted to private airlines. This is the real policy of the government.
Whether the new Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi is also continuing the line of Praful Patel to decimate the Air India, the government’s own company?

According to the report of the National Crime Records Bureau on ‘Accident Deaths and Suicides in India’, it is stated that 2,56,913 farmers committed suicide during the period of 16 years from 1995 to 2010; on an average more than 16,000 suicides in a year.It means 43 suicides in a day! Maharashtra leads the suicides with more than 50,000 followed by Karnataka, A.P., M.P. and Chhattisgarh, which in total counts to 2/3 of the total suicides in the country.
Before and immediately after Independence the Congress had declared about implementation of land reforms. But it utterly failed to implement any land reforms worth its name. Wherever reforms have been introduced by the Congress, opportunity was given to the big landlords and zamindars to keep all their lands in their hands by dubious ways. It was the Kerala Government under the EMS Ministry in 1957 which boldly introduced the land reforms which changed the entire situation in the state. Through an advance Ordinace, all land transactions were stopped till the land reforms were completed. In W.Bengal also later, the Left Front Government introduced the Land Reforms. It is to be noted that in the last LDF rule in Kerala, an end could be put to the farmers’ suicides.
What actually has happened in the country is a sorry state of affairs. The lands of the farmers were confiscated by the big land owners and zamindars forcibly and by cheating. Since there is no effective arrangement for giving loans to the farmers, they had to depend upon the private bankers and greedy sharks who grabbed the land when the farmers could not repay the loans. The governments did not do any thing to help the farmers. The present situation is a shame on the governments’ policy.
The farmer who tills the land and produce the food for the country is compelled to leave his family and life itself! How cruel. The struggle of the peasants and the agricultural workers have to be supported by all for a better future for the country itself.

Despite the fact, that the thousands of casual and contract labour engaged in BSNL are being ruthlessly explloited and all statutory rights denied, is well known to the Government, DOT, Labour Department and BSNL top management, why it is not corrected and genuine issues of the workers not settled?
This, to say the least is most shameful and condemnable.
As the Prsident of the BSNL Casual and Contract Workers Federation, I have approached the Prime Minister, Communication Minister, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour, Chief Labour Commissioner, Secretary DOT, CMD BSNL and all others connected with the issues. All has assured to do justice to the workers. Government has issued orders on minimum wages, BSNL has endorsed it, BSNL has issued orders for implementation of social security benefits to the casual and contract workers etc. etc. But they are not implemented at least in 90% of the places.
I have written to the Prime minister, Communications Minister, Labour Minister, Chief Labour Commissioner, Secretary DOT and CMD BSNL again. It is their responsiblity to get implemented their own orders by the field level officers and the contractors. Workers are on struggle in many places. If the authorities keep silence, the struggles will be intensified.

Probably, the Indian National Congress formed on 28th October 1885, is the first political party formed in India. Formed under the leadership of Allan Octavian Hume, Dadabhai Naoroji, Dinshaw Wacha, Surendranath Banerjee, Mahadev Govinda Ranade and other prominent personalities, it grew in to a force gradually. It led the Independance struggle. Gandhiji, Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders strengthened it along with the strengthening of the Independance struggle.
After 126 years since its formation, the present ruling Congress is mired in Corruption charges and lack of governance. It has almost forgotten all the high ideals and socialist concepts it preached before Indpendance and immediately after. Even after 60 years of Independence, the country have more than 50% illiterates, 76% poor and what not? Of course the millionaires and billionaires have grown and increased by leaps and bounds.
A change from the present is required. Everybody will agree.

Mukesh Ambani is the richest Indian again, according to the Forbes’ List published now. He is valued of Rs. $ 22.6 Billion. Next richest are are Laksmi Mittal( $ 19.2 billion), Azim Premji ( $ 13 biilion) Ruia ($ 10.2 billion) Jindal ($ 9.5 billion), Sunil Mittal($ 8.8 billion), Gautam Adani ($ 8.2 billion), Kumar Mangalam Birla ($ 7.7 billion) Palonji Mistry($ 7.6 billion) and Adi Godrej( $ 6.8 billion). Anil Ambani who has got only $ 5.9 billion is not in the first ten in the list.
However one interesting fact is that all these billionaires have lost from last year. It is stated that the down fall has been due to the mega scams and corruption charges in the country in which many corporate are also involved.

But a question need be answered by the Government?
Can any Indian become this rich if he abides by all the rules of the land? If he does not get the patronage of the ruling politicians? Without avoiding the due taxes? Without giving bribes?