IN Minneapolis, US, after an unarmed and unresisting George Floyd, a 46 year old Afro-American, was killed by a white cop after being arrested for the non-violent, alleged crime of trying to pass a fake $20 note, anti-racist protests erupted. Minneapolis cops, with a reputation for violence, responded to the initial protest with tear gas, rubber bullets and use of force. Enraged by their reaction, the protests became more determined, leading to the torching of a police station, damage to stores and other businesses, and the blockading of streets and bridges.
IN this pandemic stricken world, an observation is doing the rounds. The virus did not break the world; it was broken and the pandemic has exposed this. On a day when the total deaths due to the pathogen has overtaken the Chinese numbers, notwithstanding the prime minister’s colourful fiction inspired ‘Mann ki Baat’ in his personalised letter to the population, this would equally hold good.
THE capitalist world has been gripped by a crisis since 2008, the basic cause of which is the unsustainable neoliberal capitalist system.
Crisis-ridden capitalism has been trying its level best to come out of this crisis. But whatever methods and steps were adopted had failed to overcome this problem, unlike in earlier such crises. This showed the hollowness and vulnerabilities of the finance driven neoliberal order.
The central trade unions, which met on June 3 decided to intensify the joint struggle. They called for observing July 3, 2020 as a Protest Day all over the country. They also decided to observe non-cooperation and defiance against the government’s anti-national, anti-people and anti-worker policies, the concrete form of which will be formulated soon.
Apart from providing succour to distressed, running community kitchens, providing relief to Amphan victims, the Left parties in West Bengal have organised protest movements highlighting peoples’ demands. On the one hand, the central government is sharpening its attack on peoples’ livelihood; on the other the state government has shown a paralysed reaction to both Covid-19 and recent cyclone. The Left parties have raised peoples’ issues through demonstrations and symbolic protests.
TWO months of untold hardships and suffering, total dislocation of life and livelihoods, hunger and starvation staring in the face and absolutely no money in hand, forced to reside with the abuser with no means of escape – all this and more led to women responding massively despite the lockdown to the call of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) to hold countrywide protests against the BJP central government on June 1, 2020. As per reports received from states upto June 3, more than 43,000 women participated in 3,445 centres in 253 districts in 20 states.
TWENTY-two opposition parties met on May 22, to exchange views on the extraordinary situation in the country arising out of the Covid-19 pandemic. The economy has collapsed. All sections of society face acute distress. Livelihoods have been destroyed. Lives have been lost.
TEN largest Central Trade Unions (CTUs) in India, including the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), have filed a complaint with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) against the Indian government for unilaterally suspending the country’s labour laws. The CTUs sought powerful and effective intervention to prevail upon the Government of India to refrain from such an exercise.
WITH the US walking out of the Open Skies Agreement, the US is signalling to the world that it intends to return to days of Pax Americana that existed post Second World War, when it was the sole possessor of nuclear weapons. It has already walked out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 under George Bush Junior, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) under Trump. The only nuclear arms control treaty that still remains in place, is New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which provides a rough limit and parity on the US and Russia’s nuclear arsenals.
THE National Coordination Committee of Electricity Employees and Engineers (NCCOEEE) has given the call for a National Protest Day on June 1 against the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2020. The organisation demanded its withdrawal.