
Book former Revenue, Forest Ministers: Oppn.
The Hindu
Satheesan says previous govt. cannot absolve itself in tree felling case
Leader of the Opposition V. D. Satheesan on Thursday demanded that former Revenue Minister E. Chandrasekharan and former Forest Minister K. Raju be brought under the ambit of the ongoing investigation into the illegal felling of valuable timber from assigned land in the State. He said the previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) government could not absolve itself of the crime of allowing the forest mafia to loot the State’s timber wealth. It had passed an order on October 24 providing legal cover for the mafia to log trees on land assigned to farmers. The government issued the order under the pretext of allowing farmers to harvest trees they had grown on their land. The mafia used the ruling to convince farmers, many of them scheduled tribes, to sell them centuries-old rosewood and teak for a pittance, he said.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Friday pledged to mobilise people in resistance against the BJP-led Union government’s “anti-agricultural worker, anti-farmer, anti-worker, anti-people” laws and policies till they are all repealed, the party said on Friday. In a statement issued here, the CPI(M) said the members took the pledge following a three-day meeting held at Thiruvananthapuram.

Expressing the need for more number of socially responsive engineers and lawyers for furthering development of the country, Governor Thaawarchad Gehlot here on Friday lauded St. Aloysius institution for widening its service in the education sector by opening separate institutes for engineering and law











