MUMBAI joined the rest of the country on January 5 with vigour. From midnight on January 5 till midnight on January 6, thousands of people in Mumbai from all walks of life, irrespective of age, religion and caste, occupied the historic monument of the Gateway of India to denounce the heinous attack by RSS-BJP-ABVP masked hoodlums on JNU students and faculty members. The grievous attack on JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh and other students and teachers was condemned and the demand was made to unmask and take immediate and stringent action against the Sangh Parivar hoodlums.
WHAT do you do on an evening of dissent, especially at a time when the very essence of the Indian constitution is under grave threat? You dance, you draw, you perform and yes, you sing. For as the vibrant banners, strung at the annual SAHMAT cultural event, reminded us of Bertolt Brecht’s iconic words, “Yes, there will be singing about the dark times”.
The following is the statement issued at a press conference held on January 7, in New Delhi after CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Subhashini Ali visited various centres of Uttar Pradesh.
THE movement against the CAA, NPR and NRC has been going on throughout Andhra Pradesh for the last three weeks. State convention was conducted to gather all the sections who oppose the draconian CAA, NPR and NRC on December 23 at M B Vignana kendram, Vijayawada. P Madhu, CPI(M) state secretary, MA Gafoor, CPI(M) Central Committee member, K Ramakrishna, CPI state secretary, Congress leader Tulasi Reddy and others spoke in the convention and exposed the danger of NRC related mischievous deeds of Modi government.
IT is well understood that the current ruling dispensation in New Delhi promises a lot, but delivers little. Driven by the single point agenda to grab headlines, the government rarely puts in the hard work to work out the details for implementing the policies.
IF a head-load worker were to ask a bourgeois economist “Why does Ambani have so much wealth but I do not?”, that economist’s answer would be that Ambani has certain “special qualities” which the headload worker lacks. Bourgeois economists however are not all agreed on what exactly these “special qualities” are that are supposed to explain wealth inequalities.
THE Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) congratulates the working class, peasants, agricultural workers, students and other democratic sections for the magnificent strike across the country on January 8 despite large scale arrests and repression.
THE visual images on television channels of masked goons attacking students and teachers in the campus and hostels of Jawaharlal Nehru University have brought home to many people the startling fact that the Modi regime is engaged in an assault on public funded educational institutions, particularly central universities.
The JNU has been a prime target of the Hindutva brigade. It is a premier institution which has built up a reputation as an academic centre where a democratic atmosphere of free speech, enquiry and reason prevails.
BY killing Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, the US president Donald Trump has created a grave provocation which amounts to a declaration of war against Iran. Soleimani was the commander of the Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He was assassinated in a drone strike just when he was leaving Baghdad airport. Killed along with him was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of the Popular Mobilisation Forces, a Shia militia which is considered part of the Iraqi armed forces.
THE working class and the common people have, on January 8, 2020, once again emphatically voiced their opposition to the neoliberal policies and the communal divisive agenda pursued by the BJP government led by Modi.