ON the night of December 19, 2023, Israeli military forces surrounded the Al-Awda building in Gaza City’s Al-Remal neighbourhood. Four families were inside the building, including the Annan family, after whom the building is popularly known as the ‘Annan Building’. The Al-Remal area, along the Gaza coastline, was a middle-class area of apartment buildings. During the early days of the war, the Israelis cruelly bombed this residential area, turning this residential quarter into rubble.

NINETY years ago, a major fire engulfed the Reichstag building, the seat of the German parliament. Adolf Hitler, the four-week-old chancellor of Germany, used it as a ruse to clamp down on the opposition and forge ahead with his devious political project. In 2023 in India, the provocation was just a question that led to the mass suspension of opposition MPs in both the house of Indian parliament. The recently concluded winter session of parliament left several blots on our democracy and will go down in history for all the wrong reasons.

MARX said that the labour and nature together constituted the dual source of all wealth. Capitalism as a system has intrinsically been geared for profit maximisation regardless of human needs or natural limits. The ruling class seems to think that nature is a ‘free gift’ to capital and workers are their wage-slaves.

ON November 7, Communists worldwide commemorate the Socialist revolution led by Lenin. This year, on the same day, the renovated state committee office of the Tamil Nadu CPI(M) was inaugurated. Simultaneously, an event to unveil the statue of P Ramamurthy, a veteran Communist leader and freedom fighter, took place.During the valedictory event, P Ramamurthy’s daughter and renowned lawyer, Vaigai, concluding her speech, said, 'The very slogan Inquilab Zindabad terrorises this government.

Paying homage to Comrade N Sankaraiah, People’s Democracy reproduces an article on N Sankaraiah written by G Ramakrishnan, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, on the occasion of his birth centenary. This article was published by People’s Democracy in the issue dated July 18, 2021.BORN on July 15, 1922, Comrade N Sankaraiah, widely known as NS, enters the hundredth year of his life on July 15, 2021. He has made his mark as a versatile leader in the fields of politics, society, economy, ideology, culture and so on.