TN This Week: CITU Begins Padayatra Towards Trichy from 7 Districts

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the validity of the Tamil Nadu law allowing the bull-taming sport Jallikattu in the state. Read more

Three people, including a woman, died in an explosion in a firecracker manufacturing unit in Sivakasi of Virudhunagar district.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued a notice to the Tamil Nadu government over reports of the death of three workers allegedly after inhaling toxic fumes from a septic tank in Cuddalore on May 13.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury met Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Tuesday and said that efforts would be made to bring together secular democratic parties to defeat the BJP and save India. He was in the state to attend CPI(M)’s Dalit and Tribals conference at Villupuram. Read more

Protests and marches were organised across Tamil Nadu following the call for the arrest of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh. Read more

Chief Minister MK Stalin on Wednesday announced a 4% dearness allowance (DA) hike for state government employees and pensioners.

HOOCH TRAGEDY

The death toll in the illicit liquor tragedy touched 22, and around 55 people were hospitalised in Villupuram and Chengalpattu districts.

Tamil Nadu Police on Tuesday slapped a murder case against the Chennai chemical engineer from whom the methanol was procured and 16 others who supplied and sold the spurious liquor to villagers.

Ilaya Nambi, who owns a chemical company in Chennai, had reportedly sold 1,200 litres of methanol to Elumalai and Barakathullah for Rs 66,000, and Viji purportedly helped transport them to both places. Of the 1,200 litres, eight litres were sold and the police seized the remaining 1,192 litres of methanol.

Stalin announced a solatium of Rs 3 lakh each to the families of the deceased persons and Rs 50,000 to the injured person in the blast,

The opposition is mounting pressure on the Tamil Nadu government to remove the minister for electricity, prohibition and excise, Senthil Balaji. Leader of Opposition and AIADMK General Secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami even demanded CM Stalin’s resignation.

CITU BEGINS PADAYATRA

The CITU padayatra from the seven districts of Tamil Nadu, namely Tiruvottiyur, Coimbatore, Cuddalore, Meenjoor, Kaliakkavilai, Thenkasi, and Hosur, to Trichy began on May 20. Public meetings were held on the evening of May 19 to highlight the livelihood demands of the working people.

The padayatra in Hosur, Krishnagiri. Image courtesy: CITU, Tamil Nadu

 

CITU emphasised demands such as stopping privatisation, scraping contract systems, ensuring an eight-hour working day, and cancelling the new pension scheme.

MIGRANT SET ABLAZE

A migrant worker from Odisha, who was working in a jaggery-making unit in Namakkal district, succumbed to burn injuries after unidentified people set fire to the makeshift shed in which he w

as sleeping along with three others on Sunday.

In the backdrop of incidents targeting inter-state migrant labourers in the state, the labour department constituted a migrant coordination cell alongside a state-level advisory committee and zonal-level coordination committees with the objective to provide a safe environment for migrants.