JUNE 25 marked the 40th anniversary of the internal emergency which lasted for 19 months. The imposition of emergency was an infamous and dark chapter in the history of post-independent India. Indira Gandhi, who had won a huge majority in the 1971 Lok Sabha election, was faced with rising popular discontent which erupted in the form of various mass movements such as the Nav Nirman movement in Gujarat and the JP movement. This period also saw the biggest working class struggle in the form of the railway strike in May 1974 involving 17 lakh workers.

THE External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Israel at a mutually agreed date. This will be the first time an Indian prime minister visits Israel. The significance of such a visit would be that the close strategic relationship existing between the two countries will be given an official stamp. As some commentators have put in, Indo-Israeli relations will be “coming out of the closet”.

DURING the course of this one year, Prime Minister Modi has gone on a record eighteen foreign visits. While the country and the people wished that he paid more attention to solving domestic problems, the RSS is elated that through these visits, the PM helped in spreading RSS networks in 40 countries across the world! Clearly, he continues to discharge his responsibilities as an RSS pracharak!

THE CPI(M)’s recently concluded 21st Congress spoke of the trident of challenges facing the country and the people. The aggressive pursuit of the neo-liberal policies of economic reforms; the relentless onslaughts on the secular democratic foundations of the Indian republic by the sharpening of communal polarisation and the movement towards an authoritarian rule through the erosion of democratic institutions and methods considered sacrosanct in a parliamentary democracy, constitute the current constellation of challenges before us.