TO facilitate its agenda of wholesale privatisation, the Modi government brought in the Essential Defence Services Ordinance, 2021. The President of India promulgated it under the garb of “maintaining the essential defence services”. But its real aim is to throttle any strike and protest by defence civilian employees’ federations amid continued opposition to the government’s move to dismantle the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and corporatise the 41 ordnance factories situated across the country into seven companies so as to paveway for their ultimate privatisation.

THE reason behind the merger and acquisition of nationalised banks in our country is now clear. It is another surrender to the corporate demands for disinvestment of nationalised banks in India. A meeting was held recently under the chairmanship of the cabinet secretary of central government- a high-power committee.

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. His life is a model of what it means to be a communist both in the political arena and in family life that continues to guide and inspire us.While in his teens, NS was attracted to the self respect movement with its policies of social reform and atheism. It was a time when there was an upsurge in the national movement for freedom.

LAST week, Richard Lewontin, a dialectical biologist, Marxist and activist died at the age of 92, just three days after Mary Jane, his wife of more than 70 years had passed away. He was one of the founders of modern biology that brought together three different disciplines -- statistics, molecular biology and evolutionary biology -- together what today marks the discipline. In doing so, he also battled not only crude racism masquerading as science, but also what science really is.

ON July 11, World Population Day, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath, released the UP Population Policy 2021-2022. This policy approach which has been further reflected in the draft legislation on population control stresses on coercive measures. In addition, the policy approach mentions the need to bring “balance between communities”. Although  this issue of “balance” is not mentioned in the proposed bill, it betrays the communal approach of the government. The UP policy seeks to resurrect retrograde Malthusian frameworks which were challenged and buried decades ago.