http://www.indianexpress.com/story/214564.html
Air-conditioned Volvos, Kinley water, Baul songs: all set to take on America Sabyasachi Bandopadhyay*Kolkata, September 4 :* Maybe some things are unavoidable even for anti-imperialist movements in times of globalisation. Armed with cartons of Kinley, the mineral water from Coca-Cola, comrades of West Bengal began their journey to Vishakhapatanam, headquarters of the Eastern Naval Command, in air-conditioned Volvo buses. As many as 81 comrades from Left parties of various shades began their long march against the joint naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal, involving five countries including the US, as veteran communist Jyoti Basu flagged off two Volvo buses from the Park Circus Maidan today. Royal Cruiser, the inter-city operator that owns the buses, charges Rs 125 per km (or Rs 35,000 per day) for charters. To reach Visakhapatnam, 950km away, the Left parties have to shell out Rs 1.18 lakh for each bus. But an official for the operators said the deal would be finalised only after the protestors return. "The fare is yet to be finalised," Gautam Banerjee, executive director of the company, told The Indian Express. But the leaders shunned the bus. CPI general secretary AB Bardhan, CPI(M) state secretary Biman Bose and the Forward Bloc's Bir Singh Mahato will use SUVs. While Bardhan and Mahato will go up to Vizag, Bose will terminate his trip at Bhubaneswar. The mood was festive as relatives and friends of the participants came to see them off, most of them with flowers. There was even a Baul singer strumming out folk songs drenched in anti-Americanism. But even as the leaders such as Bardhan and Basu were thundering about US hegemony, many of the participants were looking for clues to crack the protest puzzle. Piyali Ghosh, who is part of the five-member contingent from the West Bengal Socialist Party, was one of them. "I don't know which five countries are participating, dada. I know nothing about the Hyde Act. We will come to know these things when we reach Vizag," said Ghosh, a resident of Manicktala. Echoed Arup Chowdhury of the Progressive Students' Union, the student wing of RSP: "This much I know that we are fighting a grim battle against the US which is trying to snatch our freedom." *Don't go to IAEA: Karat to Govt* KOCHI: CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat has warned the Government not to approach the IAEA till the UPA-Left committee comes out with its findings. In an interview to the party mouthpiece Deshabhimani, Karat warned that the CPI(M) would take "all necessary steps" if the government takes any follow-up action on the deal. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. - Joseph Stalin To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the pedagogy of the paredon (The Wall)! - Che Guevara -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
