that saves the livelihood of the
people and also protects the
environment of the coastal area.
On Education
The most precious human
productive asset of our country is
being ruined by the existing social
system. It is denying the basic
education to our children, and
subjecting the labour to intense
exploitation while another section
is kept idle partially or fully.
Education, from primary to higher
level, which imparts training to
sustain and develop production is
being tailored to suit the plunder
by the monopolies instead of
meeting the needs of our people
and country.
Since the 1986 policy,
successive governmentshave
owed to the globalisation agenda
resulting in steady withdrawal of
public funding to education, from
pre-primary to higher education.
Budget cuts leading to substantial
vacancies of teachers’ posts,
massive contractualisation of
teachers, withdrawal of nonteaching staff , dilution of
infrastructural and teacher-related
norms and standards to exclude
various social strata, Such neoliberal policies led to the
dismantling of state - funded
educational
institutions,
accompanied by the opening up
of an ever-expanding market for
profit-hungry,corporate-controlled,
commercialized education from
“KG to PG” (kindergartento post
graduation). This was precisely
the objective of the World Bank’s
intervention in elementary education
under its Education for All (EFA)
agenda.
8
In the case of higher education,
the government “offered” the entire
sector for market access to World
Trade Organization(WTO). Given
the manipulations by rich nations
at theWTO ministerial conference
held inNairobi (December 2015),
the Indian”off er” of higher
education become an irrevocable
“commitment”. Thus, India’s
children, adolescents, and youth
have no option but to be the
victimsof the multilayered education
system, which increases inequality
and discrimination.
The draft National Policy on
Education2016, proposed by the
BJP government, linked to “Make
in India”through “Skill India
Mission”, has the insidious design
that will appropriate, dilute, or
distort the skills and the
knowledge acquired by crores of
our youth in order to advance the
interests of the ruling classes and
their imperialist masters. It will
also ensure that the middle- and
upper-class youth - acquiring the
commoditised so-called skills in
elite, politically sanitised, corporate
educational institutions - will be
moulded to serve global capital as
pliant bonded labour.
The Conference strongly
condemns this insidious design to
exclude the youth belonging to the
poorer sections and strives to
expose this conspiracy of the
ruling classes. It calls upon the
people to fight for an egalitarian
education that will serve the
interests of Indian people and our
country.
On Health and Medical
services
Sophisticated
medical
services are offered to the people
from rich countries, often
subsidized by the government in
the name of medical tourism, while
millions of our people, particularly
pregnant women and infants, die
of easily curable diseases every
year because of lack of basic
health services. The medical and
health services are being privatised
and by introduction of health
insurance schemes in the name
of catering the needs of the poor,
public funds are being diverted to
corporate hospitals and health
insurance is being promoted. The
foreign insurance giants are vying
with each other to gobble up the
medical insurance sector which
was made into a lucrative trade.
The ruling elite in its obsession to
earn foreign exchange, has
allowed the foreign pharmaceutical
companies to use the poor as
guinea pigs to test their drugs
without caring for the disabilities
resulting from those clinical trials.
Instead of safeguarding the health
of the people, the government is
extending its full support in this
unethical practice to ensure super
profits to the MNCs.
On River Water disputes
Once again the waters of
River Cauvery turned turbulent
causing loss of life and property.
The government of Karnataka
refusing to release irrigation water
for Tamil Nadu, counter-posing the
irrigation needs of TN with drinking
water needs of Karnataka,
particularly Bengaluru, defying to
Class Struggle