IT is now about ten months after Hurricane Maria hit the US territory of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean in September 2017. The hurricane destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes, brought down electricity and drinking water systems, and communications networks. It also wreaked havoc on health facilities, roads and other infrastructure, much of which has not yet been restored. Estimates have put the total damage caused at over $100 billion (Rs 6,80,000 crores), making it the third highest economic loss due to tropical cyclones in the US since 1900.

SINCE May 22 which has become a black day for the people of Tamil Nadu, following  the brutal killing of 13 innocent protestors against the “all powerful” Sterlite Industries, a unit of Vedanta Group, the state police has started defending its ‘stooge behaviour’ across the state. It has unleashed a reign of terror among the people of Tuticorin through a series of raids and arrests upon the people, completely disregarding the rule of law along the way.

AN open daylight murder of democracy is taking place in the states of West Bengal and Tripura. Human rights and political freedom have come under severe strain. This is increasingly being seen all across the country as, for example, in the brutal suppression of dalit protests as well as use of draconian laws against human rights activists.

BECAUSE of the ever rising prices, the family budgets of workers across the country, in all sectors, are being squeezed. Whatever meagre increases they achieve through their struggles are offset by the rising prices. In effect, this means that for the same money, workers are able to buy less and less amounts of the commodities.

NELSON Mandela is no more. When my generation was in its teens, a popular song went as follows: 'To dream the impossible dream/To fight the unbeatable foe/To bear with unbearable sorrow/To run where the brave dare not go/To right the unrightable wrong.../To reach the unreachable star/This is my quest/To follow that star/No matter how hopeless/No matter how far...'

If there is one person who lived up to these ambitions and more importantly reached these milestones in his own lifetime, it was Nelson Mandela, Madiba as he was fondly called.