Latest news with #Union-State
The Hindu
2 days ago
- Business
- The Hindu
CPI Thrissur district meet concludes; K.G. Sivanandan new district secretary
A four-day Communist Party of India (CPI) district conference came to a close in Irinjalakuda on Sunday. K.G. Sivanandan has been elected as the new district secretary. The announcement was made by CPI State secretary Binoy Viswam while addressing the elected representatives at the conference. A 57-member district council and 50 representatives to the upcoming CPI State conference were also elected during the meet. The district conference has passed a resolution demanding the reinstatement of the Planning Commission, an institution once crucial to country's balanced development planning, and urged the Centre to uphold its constitutional responsibilities in maintaining healthy Union-State relations. Centre-State relations The resolution alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led administration is deliberately weakening the Centre-State relations and centralising power as part of a larger Sangh Parivar agenda. The discontinuation of the Planning Commission, a body that once played a key advisory role in strategising national development and welfare programmes, was described as a politically motivated move, especially targeted at States where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has little political footing. By replacing the Commission with NITI Aayog and simultaneously denying financial aid to States like Kerala, the Centre is allegedly crippling progressive development models, the party stated. Despite being consistently ranked at the top in indicators like health, education, and social welfare, even in the NITI Aayog's own reports, Kerala is being financially squeezed by the Centre, the resolution claimed. The CPI pointed out that the State has witnessed a shortfall of ₹2,942.29 crore in Central revenue share between 2023 and January 2025 . The 15th Finance Commission's recommendations are being ignored and the ₹12,000 crore annual GST compensation Kerala was entitled to has been discontinued, the conference said. Cultural complex The meet demanded a cultural heritage complex in Thrissur. The resolution pointed out that Thrissur has, for more than half a century, been home to the State's most prestigious official cultural institutions, including the Kerala Sahitya Akademi, Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi, and Lalithakala Akademi, Kerala Kalamandalam and Unnayi Warrier Smaraka Kalanilayam. The district's contribution extends beyond the arts. It is etched into the social and political fabric of modern Kerala through landmark struggles like the Guruvayur Satyagraha, the Kuttan Kulam protest for social justice, the Veloor Manimalarkavu women's liberation movement, the Pariyaram farmers' agitation, and labour movements in Anthikad and Amballur. Thrissur was also the land of action of visionary leaders like E.M.S. Namboodiripad and C. Achutha Menon. In light of this profound cultural, literary, artistic, political, and social heritage, the CPI district conference has urged the Kerala government to establish a comprehensive cultural heritage complex here.
The Hindu
24-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
CM accuses the media of villainising organised labour while lionising exploitative corporate employers
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has accused the right-wing media of routinely stereotyping unionised labour as a millstone around the neck of industrial development while lionising predatory corporates as symbols of progress and social good. Inaugurating the 15th State conference of the Kerala State Headload and General Workers (CITU), Mr. Vijayan urged workers to give no chance to the anti-proletarian media to demonise them as villains and lionise exploitative employers as heroes and hapless victims of so-called labour militancy. Mr. Vijayan said neoliberalism and globalisation ushered in by the Congress and aggressively pursued by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had worsened inequality and weakened social welfare. 'It has pushed millions into poverty while concentrating the country's wealth among a small elite. Unemployment has reached its highest level, and the physical quality of life index has fallen sharply. India ranks 105th in the global poverty index. Labour rights were increasingly at risk under the Central government,' Mr. Vijayan said. Mr. Vijayan accused the BJP and Sangh Parivar of stoking communalism and sectarian rife in the secular polity to divert public attention from pressing livelihood issues and working-class woes. He said the BJP has single-mindedly targeted Kerala for its successful development and social welfare approach. Bid to strangulate Kerala 'The Centre has hauled down Kerala's borrowing limit to hamper infrastructure development. It has attempted to strangulate Kerala financially by slashing down its due from the divisible pool of taxes, reducing or delaying Central allocation for joint Union-State government projects, denying natural disaster relief and preventing Kerala from seeking disaster aid from foreign donor nations,' he said. Mr. Vijayan said Kerala's development model starkly contrasts with the BJP-ruled States. 'The very idea of a secular, liberal, progressive and social-welfare oriented State as epitomised by Kerala was an anathema to the Sangh Parivar and its notion of a Hindu majoritarian State where minorities are ranked as subaltern citizens. Hence, it is in the BJP's interest to retard Kerala's progress', he added. Attacks on minorities Mr Vijayan stated that, under the BJP's watch, the Sangh Parivar has increasingly targeted Muslims and Christians, including lynching them for their dietary habits and othering the minorities as fifth columnists. He said the international spirit of proletarianism and working-class unity were the sole bulwarks against the ascendancy of schismatic Sangh Parivar ideology and identity politics, including minority communalism.
