Ever since the Indian Premier League (IPL) was launched, everybody seems to be speaking the language of cricket including Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi, who was never known as a cricket aficionado. Now he likened the PMK’s decision to support the ruling front in the RS polls to a spinner unexpectedly taking a wicket. Now one wonders who the spinner in question was and whose wicket he had claimed. Anyway, it is not the DMKs.
Bengal leads…
When the workers of the world unite then industrial sickness follows. Or so says the statistics. The Indian Parliament was recently informed by none other than the Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Mahabir Prasad, in a written reply, that West Bengal hosted a large 25% of sick micro and small enterprises units in the country as of March 31, 2007. He said according to Reserve Bank of India, the number of sick MSEs during 2006-07 was 1,14,132 and the red bastion was home for 28,592 of them, while Uttar Pradesh stood second with 13,309 sick MSEs. What a way to build the reserve army!
… Kerala follows
If the comrades in West Bengal can do it, can their counterparts in Kerala be left far behind? Indeed no. A major political controversy has been raging in God’s Own Country over the alleged opposition of farm workers affiliated to Left parties, mainly CPM, opposing mechanisation of agriculture. According to the opposition leaders, the Left-led unions have been preventing farmers from using machines while harvesting the crop. This has led to a major crop loss as heavy monsoon lashed the state during the paddy harvest season. Though Left leaders stoutly deny the charges, poor farmers have lost their annual income. But who cares. After all, petty bourgeoisie peasants are just allies of the working class in their revolutionary march forward. So long live the revolution.
