Mavalankarr hall in New Delhi witnessed yet. another historic. National Convention of workers organised by the 11 central trade unions and Federations of. Employees and workers on today,6th August,2013.
The convention was held to decide on futher course of acttion in the backdrop of continued apathy of the central government on the 10 demands of the workers and the people.
The presedium consisted all Presidents of the central trade unions including. Com.A.K.Padmanabhan(CITU). Com.Tapan. Sen,General Secretary,CITU,Com.Gurudas Dasgupta,General Secretary,AITUC,ShriBaidyanath Rai,General Secretary,BMS,K.K.Nair,INTUC and other central trade union leaders spoke.
The declaratioon unanimously adopted by the conventioon noted rightly”the strikes and sttruggkes during last three yeas have strngthened and widened the unity of the Indian working class.The convention expresses anguish over the indifference of the government towards the long pending burning issues concerning livlihood of the working people in the country who keep the national economy running anr create wealth for the country,revenues for the pulic excheuer and also profit for the employers while. Bearing the unbearable burden of all round of exxploitation through denial of their basic and minimum rights.”
The following joint programme of agitation have been unanimously adopted.
1.Demonstration/Rallies/Satyagraha at all. State capitals on 25-09-013.
2.Massivve Demonstration before Parliament on
12-12-2013. And Demonstration at all District headquarters on the same day.
3.Sectoral programme of joint actions for effectively opposing Restructuring,Outsourcing etc and on sector-specific issues/demands and against disinvestment in Public Sector Enterprises.
4.Exclusive joint action programmes on the demand of Minimum Wage and contract workers related other demands.
Com.K.G.Jayaraj,General Secretary has participated fully.Represnting BSNLEU,Com.V.A.N.Namboodiri,President,Com.Animesh Mitra,Acting General Secretary,Com.S.C.Bhattacharjee,Treasurer participated.
AIBDPA fully endorses the decisions of the convention and calls upon all units to participate in the programmes enmasse.

A. Great Legal Battle of the central pensioners has ended with the
Supreme Court,rejecting the. Special Leave. Petiton of the central
Government on. 29th July,2013.
The Principal Bench of CAT,New Delhi had given
a favourable verdict
on the petitiion filed by some pre 2006 pensioners seeking rectification of
Anomaly caused due to unjustified fixation of pension based on sixth
Pay. Commission recommendations and. Decision of the central
Government,thereof.
According to the judgement,the pre 2006 pensioers are entitled to get
a modified parity in their pension with effect from 01-01-2006.
But the government filed an appeal against the. CAT judgement
in the Delhi High Court.While the proceedings were going on in the
High Court,the government issued an order on 29th January,2013,
restricting the financial effect only from 23-09-012.However the
Delhi High Court dismissed the appeal of the government on
29-04-2013 upholding the verdict of. CAT New Delhi and the
Government was directed to pay the arrears from 01-01-2006..
Again,the central government filed a. Special Leave Petition in.the
Supreme Court which isrejected now by the apex. Court.
This is a great achievement gained through a great legal battle and
Hearty congratulations for the significant victory.
This is also one step forward for the actual. Parity.in. pension.

Few more donations are received for Uttarakhand Relief
Fund.
Com.H.S.Thakur,Circle Secretary,MP-Rs. 500
Raipur District,Chhattisgarh Circle. -Rs.3000
Nagpur District,Maharashtra. Circle-Rs.1000

A. mammoth national convention of BSNL employyees was held today,
the 3rd. August,2013 at Mavalankar hall in the auspices of Forum of
BSNL unions/associations , chaired by Com.Chandeshar Singh,General
Secretary,NFTE. and Chairman of Forum.
Com.V.A.N.NAMBOODIRI,Convenor of Forum and President,BSNLEU
presented.the paper of Declaration containing the issues confronting
BSNL and propsals for the revival of BSNL.
Thereafter representing the central trade unions,Com.Gurudas Dasgupta
M.P and General Secretary,AITUC,,Shri. Baijnath. Rai,General Secretary,
BMS,Com.Swadesh Dev Roy,Secretary,CITU spoke and assured all support
to the. Struggles to protect BSNL.
All the. General. Srsretaries of the constituent unions incuding. Com.K.
Sebatian(SNEA),Com.Prahlad Rai(AIBSNLEA),Com.Animesh. Mitra(BSNLEU)
Com.K.Mathivanan(NFTE),Com.K.Jayaprrakash(FNTO),Com.Sureshkumar
(BSNLMS)Com.R.Venkitaraman(TEPU) etc also spoke.
Similar conventions will be held at circle and SSA. levels to give wide
propaganda of the issues.
The convention also decided to fight against the anti-BSNL policies of the
Govt and.also for a better future of the employees.
Representing AIBDPA,Com.K.G.Jayaraj,General Secretary and some of the
Cirrcle Secretaries,Com.B.P.Petkar(Maharashtra)Com.H.S.Thakur(MP)
etc participated in the convention.

The supreme court has agreed to hear the pleas of all the accused in the
2G spectrum allocation case against its earlier order barring any other
court from taking up the matter.It has issued notices on a petition filed by
Reliance Telecom to set aside the order.
The Reliance Telecom has stated in the petition that the apex. Court’s
order directing the accused in the 2G case to come directly to it,bypassing
the high court,was illegal..
What. actually irked the telecom giant.may be summoning of it,s Chairman
Anil. Ambani and his wife Tina Ambani by a special. Court as witnesses. The
Company has also challenged the jurisdication of the court to monitor the
case and sought to quash the chargesheet.
It was only after the sttrong intervention of the supreme court the central
government was compelled to take some action in the. 2G case.

According to the consumer price index,the. Central government
Employees and pensioners have become eligible to get 10% hike
in their DA/DR.from 1st July,2013.Now the DA/DR will increase from
the present 80% to 90%.
The order is yet to be issued.

The proposal of the central government to sell 10% of its stake in Coal. India
toraise Rs.20000 crore was resisted strongly by the unions who prepared for
Strike.Now eventually the sale has been .halved to 5% after an
agreement with the. Unions,Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal has
said.

The. Central government is bent upon to privatise even profit
makking PSUs despite opposition from all the unions and continue
the same policy even after successful two dayss.strike on February
20,21-2013.
National Convention of Centra. Trade. Unions.
In. this context,the decision of the central. Trade unions to hold
the. National. Convention on. 6th August,2013 to decide. future
course of. action ,is most significant.

The Supeme court has issed notices to the central government,
Reliance Industries Ltd and Oil. Minister Veerappa Moily on a
petition that challenges the cabinet decision to raise natural gas
price and seeks a bigger financial penalty on RIL for alleged
suppression of gas output in anticipation of higher prices.
The apex court bench headed by Chief Justice P.Sathasivam,Ranjana
Desai and Ranjan Gogoi.on 29th July heard the petition filed by
CPI MP Gurudas Das Gupta and former power secretary E A S
Sarma.
Dasgupta had earlier written to. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
against the cabinet decision to raise the gas price from the current
$4.2 per unit to $8.4 next April.
The Chief Justice has said “We can”t dismiss the assertions made by
a senior member of paliament in limeline and. We will examine the
reliefs”
The petition against the government as well as RIL”s partners BPA &
Niko Resources seeks an addiitional penalty of $1 billion on the
stakeholders in the KG-D6 Block.When Jaipal Reddy was the oil
Minister,he had withheld recovery of $1 billion of field-development
costs saying the relatively small quantity of gas produced did not
justify the expenditure.

TRAI has asked telecom operatos to make avilable a system
to the mobile users whereby they can make complaints against
poor net work coverage or inflated bills throug text messagges,
email,regular post or couriers.

TRAL proposed this amendment in complaint norms on. 30th
July,2013,adding that customers be allowed to appeal before
Appellate Authority,the top body in customer grievence redressal.
The apex boody has observed that customer care and nodal officers
has not been able to resolve problem faced by customes.
Directives and suggestions are many but how far the private
Telecom companies bother to implement!

Even while the ruling combine at the Centre claims of economic growth after persuing neo-liberal policies since 1991, the result is that the disparity between the rich and poor widened many-fold.

According to the data collected by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO),the average spend of the richest group in urban areas was 12 times that of the poorest group in 2000; In 2012, it has increased to 15 fold. In rural areas, the disparity increased from 7 to 10 times in these 12 years.

The new economic policy has resulted in the GDP Growth for most of this period; but has not tickled down to the neediest. Rather is benefiting the already affluent sector more. The Reliances, Tatas and other richest have flourished and the poor perished or cornered.