<i>Back to school for India's communist leaders</i>

India's communist party leaders are to be sent back to school to brush up on their Marxist ideology, a party spokesman told AFP yesterday, as the revolutionary movement struggles to retain popular support.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist), the world's most electorally successful communist party, organises classes regularly for beginners but now veterans will also be given refresher courses in the theories of Karl Marx.
"Everyone needs to be educated and re-educated. This is not a one-time affair, our understanding of Marxist ideology needs to be updated regularly," CPM general secretary Prakash Karat told AFP.
"We decided that the leadership needs to renew its own understanding of Marxist ideology before it offers guidance to the cadre."
The two five-day sessions, which begin this month and also cover politics, history and science, come as the CPM faces internal strife over its ideological direction after losing 27 seats in the 2009 general election.
They still lead the ruling alliance in West Bengal state -- the party's long-time bastion of power -- and also in the southern state of Kerala, which is one of India's most advanced regions.
Leaders of the CPM "are seen as theoreticians, out of sync with reality and the people", said Rasheed Kidwai, a biographer of Sonia Gandhi and the head of the national ruling Congress party.