Thursday, August 9, 2012

CPI(M) warns of mass stir in Kerala


The CPI(M) Kerala State secretariat has alleged that the policies and strategies of the Congress-led coalition governments in the State and at the Centre were threatening the very right of the citizens to exist.

In a statement after a meeting to assess the preparations for the August 22 blockade of the district collectorates and the Secretariat in Kerala announced earlier, the party’s State secretariat said a massive public agitation had now become a necessity to persuade the State and Central governments to change their ways. The blockade would be to highlight two demands: “Ensure food security and prevent price rise.”

The party said the policies of the State and Central governments, designed along neoliberal lines, were intended to squeeze the poor on the one side and fatten the corporate houses on the other. Prices of all essential commodities were going up steadily.
The yardsticks used for determining the people who were below the poverty line had been changed in such a way as to exclude more poor people from the list requiring protection under the public distribution system. Rice stock had piled up in the warehouses and was rotting, but the poor people were not getting it.