THE US state department is busy with concoctions of %u2018human rights abuses%u2019 everywhere in the world except in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the Guantanamo Bay prison complex. When there is such abuse everywhere (oh yes, the United States itself is a %u2018noted and notable exception,%u2019 to quote a state department spokesperson), should Nandigram in Communist-led Left Front-ruled Bengal be left behind?
At Nandigram itself -- whoever here are even aware of the US state department and its twisted ways in the green and calm of the rural hamlets -- developmental work has started afresh after a year of the right-left horror when 29 CPI(M) workers were butchered, when thousands were made homeless, and when even the imperialists%u2019 definition of %u2018human rights%u2019 was grossly, systematically, wilfully violated (and nary a squeak from the Bush, Rice & Co.), every day, every night, every week, every month.
At Nandigram Block I, an NREGA project worth Rs 62 lakh has started. Job cards are distributed in every village, in every Panchayat area. The rural poor are involved with the entire process. Seven canals are being dredged, widened, the alignment corrected, and the gradients reoriented so as to utilise the maximum amount of the rainfall in the back and forth flow of the river Haldi. The total cost of the refurbishing of the canal-based irrigation system will be close to Rs 72 lakh, CPI (M) leaders Ashok Guria and Ashok Bera report.
The %u2018untied fund%u2019 from which a variety of dev
