AIALA Organizes Militant Demonstrations Nationwide
On January 16, AIALA held protest demonstrations all over the country against non-implementation of the NREGA. Demonstrations were held in every district of Jharkhand, while militant gheraos, demonstrations etc, with massive participation, were organized at various district HQs in Bihar. At many places, sensing the militant mood of the masses, many District Magistrates fled away. In addition to demonstrations at Jehanabad, Darghanga, Rohtas, Siwan, Patna, and other centres, ‘Ghera dalo-Dera dalo’ sit-in protests were organized from January 16 to 18 at Bhojpur District HQs. There, panchayat representatives alleged that the Government is providing neither jobs nor unemployment allowance promised under NREGA to card-holding job-seekers, despite the fact that there is no paucity of funds for NREGA. Instead of providing minimum wages of Rs. 68 for 7 hours of work, a precondition is being made for digging 110 cubic meters of soil, which is an open violation of the Minimum Wages Act. If this precondition is accepted, workers can never get minimum wages nor can women workers ever get jobs. Thus, in terms of providing jobs the NREGA scheme is a non-starter in Bihar.
A mass demonstration was held at Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan. In Tamilnadu, since January 16 was a holiday, demonstrations were held at 10 centres on January 22 instead, including Tiruvalluvar, Madurai, Nagapattinam, Thanjavur, Krishnagiri, Dindigul, Pudukottai, and Dharmapuri.
Comrade Mahendra Singh’s Martyrdom Day Observed in Jharkhand
On the 2nd anniversary of Comrade Mahendra Singh’s martyrdom, on January 16, many programmes were organized all over Jharkhand and other parts of the country. In Bagodar, his hometown, a mammoth rally was organized at Training School Grounds. Addressing the surging mass gathering, Comrade Dipankar called upon the people to fulfil Comrade Mahendra Singh’s dream for a new, resurgent Jharkhand. He alleged that the State as well as Central Governments are influencing the CBI inquiry, which is why the CBI is unable to nab the killers even after two years.
Earlier Comrade Dipankar and other leaders paid tributes to Comrade Mahendra, garlanding his statue in his native village Khambhra and Bagodar.
In Dhanbad, CPI(ML) supporters blocked Randhir Verma Chowk, protesting against the conspiratorial and partisan attitude of governments and CBI in the investigation of Mahendra Singh murder case. Addressing the protesters, Comrade Swapan Mukherjee, General Secretary AICCTU, alleged that the CBI’s decision to leave the then SP of Giridih Dipak Verma outside the purview of its inquiry, despite instructions of NHRC to this effect, is politically motivated. He said that the govt. has not advanced a single inch in the direction of punishing Com. Mahendra’s assassins and CBI is misleading the people by its sensational ‘revelations’, every now and then.
At Ranchi, a Convention was held which was addressed by Comrades Shubhendu Sen and Ramji Rai, and several mediapersons and intelligentsia participated.
AICCTU Solidarity Address at CITU National Conference
on behalf of the National Council of AICCTU, Comrade V Shankar, one of the National Secretaries attended the inaugural session of the CITU’s recent all-India Conference (17-21 January, 2007) in Bangalore. In his solidarity address, Comrade Shankar welcomed the fact that the conference was being held in Bangalore, the Silicon Valley of India and a fortress of global capital and hoped that it would send out a message of hope and confidence among the growing army of IT workers who are increasingly realising the need to get organised against violence, insecurity and the tyrannical conditions of work in the cyber industry. He also recalled the heroic resistance of young women workers in the garments industry in Bangalore and the energetic participation of unorganised sector workers in the December 14 all-India industrial strike and stressed the need to further strengthen the trade union movement among unorganised sector workers.
Welcoming the growing peasant resistance against state-sponsored corporate land rush from Punjab to West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh to Karnataka, he called upon the Left trade union movement to side with the fighting peasantry in this battle for rolling back the SEZ Act 2005 and the entire gamut of neo-liberal economic, industrial and agricultural policies. The solidarity address also underlined the need for a more assertive social and political role of the Indian working class and for broadening the horizons of trade union solidarity to effectively confront the onslaught of globalisation.
A New Front for India’s Health
Health is as much a political as a medical issue – this was felt by a range of activists who met in Chennai on 24 December 2006 to discuss ways to change the dire situation of public health in the country.
The meeting was the first in a series of consultations being undertaken in different parts of the country as a step towards the formation of the Indian Health Front, a broad coalition of activists and organizations working on both health and related political issues. Similar consultations are planned to be held in Bangalore, Kolkata, New Delhi, Chandigarh, Mumbai culminating in a National Conference in Bhopal on December 3 2007, the 23rd anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster.
A wide range of issues related to the public health situation in the country were raised by participants, who were mostly from Tamil Nadu but also from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
Starting off the meeting Amal said that the new front, apart from addressing health policy and its proper implementation would also try to make direct interventions in the community to tackle public health problems.
Geeta Ramaswamy, veteran labour and women’s rights activist, spoke about the health problems of the urban poor and said that the Indian State had completely failed to meet their needs. In particular, she pointed out that unorganized labour, which formed over 90 percent of the country’s workforce, had little or no health care at all.
Dr Rakhal Gaitonde spoke about the situation of health care in rural areas and said that the situation of infant and maternal mortality or access to health facilities was dismal even in a state like Tamil Nadu, which was relatively better compared to other parts of the country.
Abhay Mehta, Convenor, Jan Swasthya Abhiyan gave an overview of the campaign’s history, activities and key objectives. Dr Srinivasan of Medico Friends Circle said that the crisis of healthcare delivery services in India had deepened in the last thirty years. He gave an overview of the history of the MFC, which was formed in 1975 and its regular activities.
G Ananthakrishnan presented a paper on the potential for introducing a universal health insurance in India. Dr. Padma Balasubramaniam and Pratyush Bharati made presentations on the experience of Cuba’s health care system and the changes being brought about in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.
In the discussions that followed participants pointed out that the health status of the population was closely linked to the social, economic, cultural and political situation in the country. Poverty, manifested in the form of low income, malnutrition, lack of drinking water and poor access to energy sources it was pointed out was the biggest disease in itself as well as the cause of most health problems.
Caste and gender discrimination, the commercialization of medical education and the lack of health facilities in rural areas were also major reasons for the poor status of health in India. In recent years, the advent of neo-liberal economic policies has compounded the problems of public health in the country by creating huge income inequalities, giving a free rein to multinationals that operated polluting industries and marginalizing people who depended on agriculture for survival.
Some participants said that the problem of impunity of multinationals, exemplified by Union Carbide (and its successor Dow Chemicals) of Bhopal gas tragedy notoriety, was only bound to get worse in the days ahead.
Apart from low investments in public health infrastructure a major problem was the poor maintenance of existing facilities and lack of implementation of announced policies. And in this situation the Indian State was washing its hands off its responsibilities by encouraging corporations to take over the health sector.
Among the suggestions for activities to be taken up as part of the Indian Health Front’s activities were:
· Campaign for free healthcare and social security for all
· Campaigning for greater State investment in basic rural and urban infrastructure such as water, energy and sanitation
· Setting up citizen’s health committees at various levels to monitor public health.
· Organising healthcare workers
· Studying impact of globalization on public health
· Creating a national rural health network
· Fighting against privatization of medical education
The meeting felt the need for closer coordination between healthcare activists and mass organizations of the working class and rural poor in taking forward the people’s health movement.
Sixth Conference of
Coal Mines Workers’ Union at Dhanbad
The sixth conference of the CMWU took place at Dhanbad, 23-24 December. The Conference began with a seminar on ‘Mines Security and Outsourcing in Coal India’ – addressed by Coal Sector leaders from CITU, TUCC, IFTU and AICCTU General Secretary Swapan Mukherjee. The Seminar was addressed by widows of the victims of the Nagda colliery mishap, demanding punishment for the authorities responsible for the incident.
The delegate session was inaugurated by Bagodar MLA Comrade Vinod Singh. 177 delegates from ICL, BCCL, CCL and SECL participated in this session. The presence of delegates, led by Comrade Ram Bai from a new area of work in Chirmiri, Chattisgarh was notable. The Conference elected Comrade Upendra Singh as President and Comrade Swapan Mukherjee as General Secretary.