The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India(Marxist) has issued the following statement on October 12, 2021THE Modi government seeks to deny its role in the massive shortfall of electricity generation that has hit the country. Currently, severe power cuts are extending to many hours in Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Bihar and Punjab, while many others, including Maharashtra, Kerala and Delhi, are staring at impending blackouts.

UNLIKE in the advanced capitalist countries, a reduction in employment opportunities in India takes the form not of a larger proportion of the work-force being shut out of employment, but of almost everyone having lesser number of days of work. This is a reflection of the fact that only a tiny segment of the work-force is employed on a full-time basis. Most are either self-employed, like peasants or shop-keepers, where many more or fewer family-members can share a given amount of work; or are causal workers who may get work on a given day but not on another.

COMRADE Saraju Datta, a symbol of exemplary dedication, unyielding commitment and one of the torch-bearers in the movement for democracy and emancipation of women during the repressive rule of the feudal king in the state breathed her last in IGM Hospital, Agartala on October 5, 2021. She was wife of Biren Datta, one of the founding members of the Communist Party in the state during pre-independence days.

Comrade Saraju Datta attained membership of CPI in 1947.

THE viral images and videos of a photographer jumping on the body of a farmer who was shot dead by the police epitomise the politics of hate the RSS-BJP have systematically injected in Assam. It looked as if mere killing of the farmers could not satiate the hatred indoctrinated among the RSS-BJP followers over the years. In the viral video, Moinul Haque was advancing towards the heavily armed police force with a stick as one last attempt to ward off forcible eviction from his land, destruction of his humble dwelling and crops that were a result of sweat and toil of his family.

THE gruesome attack on protesting farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh on October 3 marks a new level of violence against the farmers’ movement which has been going on for the past ten months. The farmers were protesting the visit of the deputy chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Keshav Prasad Maurya, who was to attend a function organised by the union minister of state for home affairs, Ajay Mishra Teni.The farmers had assembled near a place where the deputy chief minister was to arrive, when a convoy of cars led by a vehicle owned by Ajay Mishra and with his son, Ashish Mishra in it,