THE strike by the workers of the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) has emerged as one of the most significant struggles against privatisation.  48,000 employees of the TSRTC have been on an indefinite strike for over a month, from October 5.  The unity and determination of the striking workers in the face of brazen threats by the chief minister, K Chandrashekar Rao, police repression and victimisation have been remarkable. 

THE BJP’s election manifesto for the Maharashtra assembly election has proposed that Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the father of the Hindutva concept, be conferred the title of ‘Bharat Ratna’.  This is part of the ongoing strategy of the BJP-RSS combine to legitimise the Hindutva ideology and to create icons out of rabid communal figures such as Savarkar.  In order to do that, the RSS and the BJP are busy myth-making about Savarkar being a great freedom fighter and nationalist par excellence. 

THE Vijayadashami address of the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has revealed glimpses of the fascistic ideology which permeates the RSS. The RSS chief took exception to incidents of mob killings being termed as “lynchings”. He said “By branding such incidents by words such as ‘lynching’, denoting traditions which were alien to Bharat and belong elsewhere, efforts are underway to defame our country and the entire Hindu society and create fear among the so-called minority communities”.

THE spectacle that Narendra Modi put up at Houston before a 50,000 strong audience of Indian-Americans has, once again, underlined the subservience that Modi has brought into Indo-US relations.  The Modi-Trump joint appearance in the stadium was nothing but a platform offered to Trump to woo Indian origin Americans in view of the forthcoming presidential election campaign. 

THE Modi government’s second stint in office has completed a hundred days. Though it is a short span of time, the genes of this government have been made starkly clear – an authoritarian regime marked by the fusion of corporate capital and Hindutva.

The past 100 days have seen an unprecedented assault on democracy in Jammu & Kashmir; the denigration of parliament, the subversion of constitutional bodies including the judiciary and the authoritarian onslaught on the opposition and all forms of dissent.