Today is the 64th death anniversary of Battakh Miyan, the freedom fighter from Champaran who is believed to have saved Gandhiji's life by foiling the indigo planter lobby's conspiracy to poison Gandhi to death during his historic 1917 Champaran visit. Battakh Miyan was a young cook then at the planter's bungalow and for his act of defiance he incurred the wrath of the planter lobby and the colonial rulers, lost his job and spent the rest of his life in colonial India facing persecution and penury.

Even as the whole country demands the resignation of Ajay Mishra, the key instigator and orchestrator of the Lakhimpur massacre of farmers who has recently been inducted in the Modi cabinet as one of Amit Shah’s deputies, as a Minister of State for Home Affairs, the MHA has quietly issued another draconian order. A notification issued by the MHA has increased the jurisdiction of the Border Security Force in the eastern and western border states of Assam, West Bengal and Punjab from the existing limit of 15 km to 50 km.

(Based on the talk delivered at the webinar hosted by the West Bengal unit of All India Bank Employees’ Association - AIBEA on 15 September 2021)

With the passing of Comrade BB Pandey, we lost the last member of the famous Durgapur trio - Comrades Vinod Mishra, Dhurjati Prasad Bakshi and BB Pandey - who played such a key role in the revival of the CPI(ML) after the setback of early 1970s. Comrades VM and BBP had come to study engineering in Durgapur in 1966 after finishing school in Kanpur. Comrade DP Bakshi was from Chinsura (Chunchura) in Hooghly district and had joined Durgapur Regional Engineering College the year before.