The promise of jobs was one of the main planks of Narendra Modi’s 2014 campaign. But since then, far from creating jobs, his regime has destroyed jobs and created the worst unemployment crisis in India in the past half century. He responded to this by attempting to spin “selling pakoras” (street-vending, which is essentially disguised unemployment and in any case such work has never needed Prime Ministerial leadership to exist) as job creation.

(A note prepared by AISA on Modi’s latest promise of job creation)

The country witnessed widespread protests by students and youth on 17 June onwards against the Modi government's Agnipath scheme for the army which is a cruel joke on the youth, and a scheme to play havoc with the entire structure of the army.

An investigative story in Wired has reported on evidence of a link between a Pune City Police official involved in the arrests of the Bhima Koregaon accused, and the hacking of the emails of at least three of the Bhima Koregaon accused.  

The Modi government's Agnipath scheme for recruitment to the Army has shocked and shaken the youth in Bihar and across the country. News of young people's suicides is coming in from some parts of the country. After 2 days of protests the government gave a mere assurance of extending the age limit just for the current year.

Sena Bharti Jawan Morcha Convener Raju Yadav, RYA National President and Agiaon MLA Manoj Manzil, AISA General Secretary and Paliganj MLA Sandeep Saurabh, RYA State Honorary President and Dumraon MLA Ajit Kushwaha, RYA State President Aftab Alam, State Secretary Shiv Prakash Ranjan, AISA State Secretary Sabir Kumar and State President Vikas Yadav jointly called for a statewide March of Anger on 20 June 2022 against the Agnipath scheme and the repression unleashed on protesters during Bihar Bandh.

What is Agnipath?

The Agnipath scheme is a new recruitment scheme for the Indian military. It aims to recruit people aged 17 and a half years to twenty-one years for a period of 4 years. Recruitment will be all India and all class. 25% of those recruited will get permanent jobs after 4 years while the remaining 75% will not. The scheme will replace (completely) the existing model under which soldiers are recruited into different regiments.

Exactly a year ago, in April-May 2021, India was gasping for breath, bodies were floating in the Ganga, crematoria were choked and cemeteries overflowing. Yet, soon, the Modi regime denied that there had ever been any oxygen shortage or any unusual or avoidable number of Covid-related deaths.

On 19 May, 2022, the Higher Education Minister of Karnataka who has enforced the Hijab Ban in educational institutions in his state and is responsible for the exclusion of Muslim girls and women from education and their subsequent targetting, was the keynote speaker at the Commonwealth Education Conference organised by Bridge India and sponsored by Birmingham City University among others.

Reproduced from LokMarg 21 April 2022. Comrade Ravi Rai, CPIML Delhi Secretary recounts how he along with CPIML and CPIM leaders stopped the bulldozers at Jahangirpuri on April 20.