ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

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TAMIL NADU ELECTIONS-How the Communists Fared

How the Communists Fared Mukundan C Menon For the first time since 1952, the left strength in the Tamil Nadu assembly has gone up instead of down. The elections have also had an impact on the relationship between the CPI and the CPI(M) at the national level as the two parties contested as members of rival fronts.

KERALA- Poisoned Water

coal.
It is possible that the Fazal Committee's recommendation may not pass muster and Coal India may not be broken up into several independent companies functioning autonomously. This would probably be too much bother for the Coal Department. Hence the parallel recommendation for converting the Coal India into a corporation with ten or more functional divisions on the) pattern of BHEL. This gives better scope for control and direction from the top, at the level of the Department in the Ministry. This would also square with yet another recommendation of the Fazal Committee for creation of a post of Coal Advisor with the rank of secretary in the Department of Coal. This is, of course, not the first time that the nationalised coal industry has received so much attention aimed to reorganise management structure.

KERALA- Inauguration of a District

foreign collaboration in industry. The number of foreign collaboration approvals was 359 in 1974; it declined to 271, 277 and 267 in the next three years; then it shot up to 307 in 1978 and 267 in 1979. ' Foreign investment in the collaboration cases approved was Rs 671 lakh, Rs 321 lakh, Rs 727 lakh and Rs 400 lakh in the four years to 1977; it increased to Rs 941 lakh in cannot be said that the increases in

KERALA-Trouble over Urdu and Arabic

August 30, 1980 Automobile tyres is another industry where there is production In excess of capacity, Ceat Tyres had an installed capacity of 8,50 lakh automotive tyres and tubes each and production of 11.21 lakh tyres and 9-79 lakh tubes, Modi Rubber had an installed capacity of 4.50 lakh tyres and tubes, hut output of 8.53 tyres and 7 lakh tubes.

TAMIL NADU-Hunting Naxalites

August 23, 1980 points out, there have been instances where port authorities have allowed lessees with monthly leases to build pucca structures on the land which would have a life of 50 years and more thus tacitly accepting that it was indeed a long lease or permanent lease. The BPT estate office points out that it is not the tenure or the, terms of a lease which defeat the port's attempts to reacquire vacant land for its own use. The problem is the difficulty in evicting "even the smallest tenure like casual occupations". Iron merchants in Masjid Bunder who had small storage yards there have subsequently been moved to the outer suburbs, But the lands have not been recovered by BPT. Instead the storage yards now have shops and commercial buildings on them. The difficulty in getting evictions is mainly legal, according to the estate office. So the situation is that BPT turns a blind eye while lessees convert their leases into permanent ones. At the same time BPT complains that it does not have the legal instruments to pursue cases in court successfully and, has been pressing for the amendment of the Public Premises Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants Act 1971. In order to prevent misuse of leases the ministry of shipping and transport had directed that only short- term two or three year leases be entered into in future. But the BPT finds that such a proposal would be futile unless there is a master plan laying out areas for future port trust use. But this master plan does not exist.

CIVIL RIGHTS-Obsolete, but Deadly

Graduate Teachers' Association and the Students Federation of India. On the fourth day of the agitation, a two- member commission appointed by the Syndicate of Madras University conducted enquiries at the college, speaking to representatives of the staff and students and, later in the day, to the management. Addressing newsmen, the Vice-Chancellor conceded that whatever might be the rights of minority-run institutions, the University had an obligation to ensure that rules governing salaries, service conditions and job security were enforced

LABOUR-Delhi Textile Workers Strike

LABOUR Delhi Textile Workers' Strike Mukundan C Menon DESHIE the change of government from communal Janata to 'lett of center janata (S), and despite Raj Narain's public assurance at the Ram- ina Ground meeting on the eve of the change, the two-month old total strike of delhi textile workers, involving 25,000 workers and affecting around 1.5 lakh people, still continues without a soitution in sight Everyone expected an initiative to end the strike from the Ciiarau Singn government before August 20, the day it was billed to seek a vote of confidence in the Lok Sabha, However, the issue of Delhi textile workers aemands was missing in the coauuon government's 27-point programme, put together specifically for cornering as many crucial votes as possible on the 20th.

THE POLICE- Shades of the Emergency


some might return and again lead the agitation. In retrospect, there is a realisation that the move to fight the army was a wrong step. However, the refusal of the CRP and BMP units in Bokaro to fire on the CISF jawans also THE POLICE Shades of the Emergency Mukundan C Menon THE Janata party had in 1977 and 1978 celebrated June 25/26 as anti- repression and anti-fascist day, symbolising the clamping of the internal Emergency by the Indira Gandhi regime. This year, however, no such Janata function was held in the capi- tal; instead the Prime Minister chose this day to tell a press conference of his intention to reintroduce Preventive Detention, According to the Prime Minister, the measure, which he had vehemently opposed during the Gujarat agitation of 1974, was necessary to curb "anarchists'', whom he refrained from identifying.

KERALA- Politics of Rape

Trivandrum, compared to the other three cities, in the second, fourth, and fifth questions. How is this to be explained? Was the survey conducted differently in these two cities? Have Tamilians and Malayalis suddenly lost their ability to think and speak? Or

KERALA-The Ghost of Rajan


KERALA The Ghost of Rajan Mukundan C Menon THE lengthy judicial procedure in the famous Rajan case in Kerala began with the habeas corpus petition filed by Eiehara Variyar, father of Rajan, in the Kerala High Court requesting it to pass an order for the production of his son who had been arrested by the police during Emergency. In that petition filed on March 25, 1977, Karunakaran, the then chief minister, was not included as a respondent. But Karuna- fcaran's Assembly statement of March 29, 1977 after the High Court accepted the petition ("Rajan was not arrested the police; nor is he in police custody. How the police is responsible to answer the whereabouts of such a person") prompted Variyar to request on March 30, 1977 that Karunakaran should also be included as a respondent.

THE POLICE-Crime and Punishment in Rajan Case

engaged only in formulations should also get the benefit under FERA. That certain types of formulations require high skill and careful manipulative technology is not denied. But this technology has now percolated to many Indian sector factories also and in any event there are experts who can assist in the setting up of such formulation lines and guide related research. It is therefore doubtful if our country can afford the continuance of long-term high foreign equity participation for formulations in factories producing no ON September 4, 1978, the District and Sessions Judge of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, MAP Mohammed, sentenced the former DIG of Kerala Crime Branch, Jayaram Padickal, former Crime Branch Superintendent, Murali Krishna Das, and former Crime Branch Dy SP, K O Kunjiraman Nam- biar, to one year's rigorous imprisonment in the famous P Rajan murder case. The prosecution case, in brief, was that two students of Calicut Regional Engineering College

The Dead and the Barely Living

minor and ineffectual share in the market. What is more, the erstwhile tendency of CCI to go in for mini cement plants, which were ordained uneconomic by official pronouncement, is in danger of being revived under the objective of an employment-oriented industrialisation programme.

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