Friday, October 4, 2013

কমরেড গিয়াপের জীবনাবসান

Ganashakti


সরকারীকর্মী ছাঁটাইয়ের লক্ষ্যে কমিটি গড়লেন মমতা ‘উদ্বৃত্ত’ চিহ্নিত করতে চার অফিসারকে দায়িত্ব, সময় ছ’মাস

Ganashakti


Sri Lanka's Tamil party wins landslide election victory | Al Jazeera America

Sri Lanka's Tamil party wins landslide election victory | Al Jazeera America


Vo Nguyen Giap, Vietnamese commander whose army defeated French, Americans, dies - The Washington Post

Vo Nguyen Giap, Vietnamese commander whose army defeated French, Americans, dies - The Washington Post


China’s leader, Xi Jinping, consolidates power with crackdowns on corruption, Internet - The Washington Post

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, consolidates power with crackdowns on corruption, Internet - The Washington Post


Defending the Constitution: No Omnibus Protection for Convicted Lawmakers | The Hindu Centre

Defending the Constitution: No Omnibus Protection for Convicted Lawmakers | The Hindu Centre


Defending the Constitution: No Omnibus Protection for Convicted Lawmakers | The Hindu Centre

Defending the Constitution: No Omnibus Protection for Convicted Lawmakers | The Hindu Centre


The mastermind of Vietnam’s military victories - The Hindu

The mastermind of Vietnam’s military victories - The Hindu


Missing German girl found dead in Faridabad - The Hindu

Missing German girl found dead in Faridabad - The Hindu


Dear Narendra Modi, beware, numbers don't lie | Firstpost

Dear Narendra Modi, beware, numbers don't lie | Firstpost


Feature: Venezuela’s Maduro stuck in shadow of ‘El Comandante’ Chavez | Firstpost

Feature: Venezuela’s Maduro stuck in shadow of ‘El Comandante’ Chavez | Firstpost


Five states to go to polls from 11 Nov to 4 Dec, verdict on 8 December | Firstpost

Five states to go to polls from 11 Nov to 4 Dec, verdict on 8 December | Firstpost


Declare Jharkhand Drought Hit: Left Parties - Shashikant

Declare Jharkhand Drought Hit: Left Parties

Shashikant

ON September 23, 2013, a delegation of the Left parties called on the Jharkhand chief minister, Hemant Soren, at Ranchi and urged for his intervention to improve the law and order situation and tackle the drought situation in the state.

The delegation included the CPI(M) state secretary Gopikant Baksi, CPI(M) state secretariat member and former MLA Rajendra Singh Munda, K D Singh of the CPI and Radhakant Jha of the RSP.

The memorandum submitted to the chief minister expressed concern over the sharply deteriorating law and order situation throughout the state, including the capital city Ranchi. The graph of heinous crimes like gang rape, murder, abduction of women and children, and trafficking in women are sharply rising with every passing.

The delegation demanded that the police must deal with the culprits sternly and a special task force be set up to deal with the crimes. The delegation demanded a CBI probe into the issue of gang rape and murder of two school girls in the Police Line at Deoghar by the wards of police personals during the third spell of president’s rule in Jharkhand in May 2013. In spite of the order of the state governor, a CBI probe has not yet been initiated.

The delegation drew the chief minister’s attention towards the concerted attempts being made by communal forces to disrupt communal harmony in the state.

The delegation said that several parts of the state were witnessing a dry spell due to irregular monsoon. It demanded that the government must declare drought in Jharkhand, immediately start relief programmes, waive the farmers’ loans, sanction them fresh loans without interest, increase the number of working days under the MGNREGA, supply 35 kg of foodgrains to the affected families per month at the rate of one rupee per kg, and supply essential commodities through the public distribution System.

The issue of 11.40 lakh beneficiaries of the additional BPL list, who were deprived of getting foodgrains for the last four months, was raised by the delegation. Restoration of the supply has since been demanded.

The chief minister discussed the issues raised by the delegation and assured to look into the matter. On the drought like situation, he said the government was constantly monitoring it.

Comrade Vinod Raina

Comrade Vinod Raina

Amit Sengupta

FORTY years back a young scholar with a fresh PhD in Physics from Delhi University took a train to Hoshangabad in Madhya Pradesh. It was to be a turning point in the life of Vinod Raina, for this short train journey was to transform him into a lifetime social activist, campaigner and educationist in the true sense. He left behind the glamour world of theoretical Physics to plunge into the struggle to transform society through the universalisation of access to education and knowledge.

Vinod Raina passed away after a brave four year long battle with cancer in Delhi on Thursday.  The democratic movements in Indiahave lost a comrade. This is how, perhaps, he would have best liked to be remembered. A comrade who was clear in his partisanship towards science, towards knowledge and its free access, towards the values of democracy that shuns the poisonous influence of sectarian and fundamentalist politics.

Vinod’s lifelong passion was education. His train journey to Hoshangabad was the beginning of his association with the Hoshangabad Science Teaching Programme. He was to later be part of founding Eklavya, a path breaker in  the landscape of science teaching programmes in the country. Vinod’s vision and intellectual sweep ensured that initiatives that he was involved in did not remain limited as small NGO programmes. Eklavya soon became an example of how education can be both joyful and liberating, and its success left its mark on teaching methodologies across the country. His vision was always much larger, he set value to the transformative potential of education. Perhaps he would agree himself that the culmination of his life’s work was the enactment of the Right to Education Act by the Indian parliament in 2009. The RTE Act was very dear to Vinod and he fought relentlessly to shape the Act and to ensure a consensus around it.

The Bhopal Gas Tragedy in 1984 saw Vinod in the forefront of the struggle for justice for the victims of the worst corporate crime in the history of India. Vinod’s interest in using smaller struggles into larger mobilisation for societal transformation led him to be one of the co-founders of the Peoples Science Movement in India. He remained a key leader of the All India Peoples Science Network, formed in 1987, right till he left us all. It was natural that Vinod was one of the activists of the Peoples Science Movement who was later to contribute to the building of the Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti (BGVS) in 1990. Vinod served as the national general secretary of the BGVS for several years and became one of the most powerful voices of the huge literacy movement that swept across the country in the 1990s. When the government of India’s interest in the total literacy programme started waning and the programme became bureaucratised, Vinod helped develop the BGVS’s ‘Jeevanshala’ and ‘Gyan Vigyan Vidyalaya’ programmes. Both these programmes were designed to equip local communities to intervene effectively in school education, especially in areas where the infrastructure for education was weak or non-existent.

Vinod remained rooted in his commitment to local struggles for democracy and rights throughout his life. While science and education were his first loves, he became a part of the environment movement and was one of the loudest voices speaking for the victims of capitalist development, who were forced out of their lands and lost their livelihoods. The Narmada Bachao Andolan, the anti-nuclear struggles in many parts of the country, and many other people's movements found in Vinod a tireless fighter and a comrade-in-arms.

Vinod would say that all his later day work was rooted in what he learnt from the simple village people in Hoshangabad district. He was to use this knowledge to work on a canvas that was truly global. Through Jubilee South, he became a crusader against the unjust global policies of the rich countries, and was in the forefront of the global struggle to cancel the unjust debts that were forced on poor developing countries. He was, for long, an International Council member of the World Social Forum and remained one of its prominent voices till his death. He was also one of the founders of the global Forum for Science and Democracy.

Vinod was a wonderful orator, both in Hindi and English – he had a way with words that could convert the most cynical opponents into believers of social transformation. He was also an accomplished singer and his melodious voice would often lift the spirit of activists as they gathered together at the end of a long and tiring day.

The Peoples Science Movement, the Literacy and Education movements, numerous people’s movements – all shall miss Vinod’s physical presence. But comrades such as Vinod do not die, they remain alive through their work and in the minds and the struggles of people he worked with.