IN discussions about the laws and policies passed and implemented by the Modi government in recent years, one crucial similarity is often overlooked. Many of the policies, such as the farmers' law, labour laws, environmental laws, and forest act, have been modelled after those of the colonial era. This point was repeatedly emphasised during the farmers' protests, which became one of the most radical and determined movements in independent India's history and lasted for a whole year at the borders of the capital.

THE first quarter of the twenty-first century is showing many similarities with its immediately preceding counterpart (the twentieth century), especially regarding science in general, and elementary particle physics, and cosmology in particular; and regarding the latter, the literally earth-shaking discovery made by Edwin Hubble. His observations using earth-based telescope(s), of the “red shift” of light reaching us from the distant stars, showed that the universe is expanding! This has been confirmed and further examined, by probes sent into space as well as ground-based observations.

AGAINST the anti-peasant policies of the Narendra Modi government, farmers in the country, unitedly under the leadership of Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), organised the longest, most united, and most historical struggle in 2020 and 2021. They faced unprecedented attacks and oppression by the government. They became victims of widespread false government propaganda and RSS propaganda. 750 of our comrades became martyrs in the struggle; thousands of false cases were registered against the farmers.

THE ever deepening systemic crisis of capitalism, the unprecedented pandemic, imminence of the second global recession in a decade (a phenomena not witnessed in the last eight decades) have all exposed the fact that under the neoliberal paradigm we are seeing a fast paced regression into barbarism.

A FORMER dictator of El Salvador, Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez, stated: “Killing an ant is a greater crime than killing a man”. Though stated in a different context and well before the formation of the State of Israel on Palestinian land, it captures the mindset of the rulers of the present Israeli State. As the current PD editorial notes, more than one Palestinian is killed everyday by the Israeli government in these past two months. And this is done with impunity.