THE question of farm-loan waiver that is being demanded by the peasantry is much misunderstood. Such a waiver, it is argued by critics, would vitiate the credit-culture in the country: people would stop repaying loans henceforth in expectation of waivers on them. Since the UPA government had waived farm-loans a few years ago and now again there is a demand for a farm-loan waiver, peasants, they contend, are getting into a habit of not paying loans and demanding periodic waivers instead.

TEA workers in West Bengal went into a historic two day strike on June 12-13, defying repression from state administration. The strike, at the call of the Joint Forum of Trade Unions, was near total in three tea producing districts of Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Darjeeling, along with two sub divisions of North Dinajpur and Coochbehar districts.  The strike, with a focused demand of minimum wages in tea industry, came after long and arduous struggle of the workers.

THERE was a petrol bomb attack on the district committee office at Coimbatore on June 16th morning. Party office car and windows of the office were damaged in this attack. CPI(M) state secretariat has strongly condemned the attack on Coimbatore district committee office.CPI(M) Party offices are functioning to solve the problems faced by the working people. In the past, whenever Coimbatore was affected by communal violence, the Party played a key role in safeguarding people’s unity and communal harmony.

IT was a distressing news report -- Aarti Sharma, a woman from Agra in Uttar Pradesh, offered to sell her kidney to bear educational expenses of her three daughters and a son. And no one in her state came out to help her, despite her meeting Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The district administration refused to offer any help to Aarti and her children in their hour of need. She had to sell their LPG cylinder in the black market to travel to Lucknow to meet the chief minister.

ONE of the biggest gambles by any sitting prime minister in the history of British politics has spectacularly backfired on the cautious Prime Minster Theresa May.When May called a snap general election, she required a change of legislation to repeal the fixed time parliament that had three years to run.The main opposition parties of Labour and the Scottish National Party were confronted with Hobson’s choice to either endorse the call for an early election or be highlighted as running scared of the will of the people.Theresa May influenced by opinion polls that were placing the Conservative