Indonesia’s New President

THE Indonesian Election Commission officially announced on July 22 that the victor of the final round of Presidential elections held on July 9 was Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi. The elections were hard fought with the opposition engaging in dirty tricks in a belated effort to pip him at the polls. The opposition’s propaganda blitz did succeed in whittling down the 20 per cent lead that Jokowi had initially enjoyed before the campaign had begun in earnest.

Ban on Student Union Elections in Himachal Pradesh

KARL Marx and Friedrich Engels, the immortal heroes for the working and toiling masses of the world, not only showed the path of liberation to the working class, but together also encompassed one of the most historic friendships that world has ever seen. This friendship of two of these greatest intellectuals of the working class led to brilliant exchange of ideas.

CPI(M) Pune Office Attacked By RSS Hoodlums

AT around 2.30 pm on September 2, a gang of around 15-20 hoodlums attacked the CPI(M) and CITU office at Narayan Peth in Pune city. They damaged the furniture, tore up papers related to the ongoing struggle of unorganised workers and threatened the handful of Party activists who were in the office at the time. They said that this attack was in retaliation to the murder of an RSS activist in Kannur in Kerala the previous day.

Hindutva, White Lies & the Mask of Development

FROM love jihad to the appropriation of the revolutionary freedom fighter Rajguru as a ‘dharma yoddha’, it is abundantly evident that the Modi government is more about aggressive reassertion of the Hindutva agenda and less about development, efficiency and accountability. The growing spate of communal riots and the recent campaigns of the Sangh Parivar show that the BJP and its government has created the legitimacy and space for dangerous political polarisation and discourse.

BIPAN CHANDRA (1928-2014)

BIPAN Chandra, one of India’s leading historians and an uncompromising defender of secularism and the scientific spirit, passed away in the early hours of August 30, 2014. His death was widely reported both in the newspapers and the electronic media, where there were also a spate of obituaries and commemorative commentaries. This is how, indeed, it should have been because Bipan Chandra’s death has been a great loss not only to the academic community but to the thinking part of our nation.

West Bengal: Desperation in Scam Time

IT is scam time in West Bengal. What was known to almost everyone, a bit partially, has now been exposed to the public by the ongoing CBI investigations into the Saradha chit fund scam. Almost daily, ministers and leaders of the ruling party and people close to them are being interrogated by central investigation agencies CBI and Enforcement Directorate. Numerous raids have been conducted in their premises and the chain of biggest ever economic fraud in the history of the state is now coming into daylight.

PUNJAB: Four Left Parties Organise Protest Dharna & Demonstration

FOUR Left Parties of Chandigarh and Mohali namely CPI CPI(M), CPM Punjab and CPI (ML) Liberation staged an impressive dharna and held a massive demonstration in Chandigarh at City Centre, Sector 17 on September 2. The dharna was presided over by Raminderpal Singh, Kuldeep Singh, Tarlochan Singh Rana and Lal Bahadur.

The Reality of Provident Fund Linked Pension

PENSION is a demand of all workers, in anticipation of a decent retired life. Indian working class has a long history of struggles for a social security scheme guaranteeing a dignified life. But the situation in the country has been such that a large majority of Indian working people do not even get wages to ensure a decent living while they are working.

Hepatitis and the Thousand Dollar Pill

CAPITAL’S greed to maximise profits respects very few boundaries. If the pharmaceutical industry were to be used as an example, it would seem that greed that is predicated on the helplessness of the sick and the ailing knows no bounds at all. Recent evidence for this comes from the marketing of a drug, called Sovaldi, by the US based company, Gilead.

SHAMELESS PROPAGANDA

THE news was splashed everywhere: India’s GDP in the first quarter (April-June) of 2014-15 had increased at the rate of 5.7 percent over the corresponding quarter of the previous year, and that this was the highest quarterly growth rate recorded for the past two and a half years. The growth rate for the previous quarter (over the corresponding quarter a year ago) was only 4.6 percent; and the growth rate for the first quarter of 2013-14 (over the corresponding quarter a year ago) was only 4.7 percent.

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