THE BJP-ABVP-led attack on Jadavpur University on August 19-20 has developed into a wider confrontation over democratic space in educational institutions across West Bengal. What began with a general body meeting of engineering students on the evening of August 19 turned into a night of violence inside the university, followed by a large mobilization the next day, damage to the university’s historic emblem, and continuing protests by students, teachers, and alumni.

FOLLOWING decolonization, the newly liberated third world countries had sought to follow a development trajectory that consciously broke away from the colonial pattern of international division of labour. Towards this end they had pursued a policy of import-substituting industrialization and their ex-colonial masters, though disliking it, could do little about it.

ON 12 August 2026, India marks 90 years of the organised student movement. This is not merely the 90th anniversary of the formation of a student organisation; it is an occasion to recall the nine-decade-long journey of organised student consciousness and struggle in India. The foundation of the organised student movement was laid on 12 August 1936, when the first two-day All-India Conference of an organised student body began.

On August 24, a rally was organised in the Jogendranagar area adjoining Agartala city by electricity consumers who have been struggling under the burden of high electricity bills. Following this rally, the BJP organised another rally, during which its supporters carried out extensive vandalism at the local CPI(M) office, creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation in the area. Local residents strongly condemned the vandalism at the CPI(M) office.

The war against Iran must not be understood as an isolated eruption of aggression by US hyper-imperialism. Nor can it be explained merely by the obsessions of Donald Trump, the expansionist ambitions of Israel, or the influence of the most reactionary sections of the US ruling class. The war belongs to a much wider crisis. The United States is lashing out because the foundations of its power are weakening, while its ruling class has neither the political imagination nor the social capacity to repair them.