ON July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro and his compatriots stormed the Moncada garrison as part of their struggle against the then dictatorial regime in Cuba. Though that effort failed and Fidel himself was arrested and many lost their lives, this proved to be the pivotal moment in Cuba’s revolutionary history. It gave birth to the July 26 movement that spread throughout the country and contributed to the success of the subsequent armed guerrilla struggle led by Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Raul Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos, and others.

IN Himachal Pradesh, the apple economy is about Rs 5,000 crore. It is the backbone of the state’s economy. During the past few years due to the implementation of the neoliberal economic policies by the successive governments in the state, the horticulture  sector especially the apple industry has been neglected. The subsidies on fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides were withdrawn. The research and development projects were also neglected.

IN four years, Reliance Jio used its oil and gas revenues to finance its entry into telecom and become the leading Indian player. It bled the others with its initial low cost, predatory pricing till they surrendered, letting Jio emerge as the undisputed market leader.  Jio has also made claims that its network is free from any Chinese equipment, and of an in-house, ‘indigenous’ 5G technology, positioning itself as a major player in the US-China 5G trade war.But even with its fat oil war chest, the Reliance empire had a huge overhang of loans.

THE CPI(M), on July 16, organised a state-wide satyagraha in front of government hospitals in Telangana to highlight and protest the state and central governments’ failure in containing the spread of Covid-19 in the state. Over 47,000 Covid-19 positive cases have been reported across the state and more than 400 people have succumbed to the infection so far.The protests were held in 196 centres across Telangana wherein nearly 4,700 people participated.

THE finance minister, in her article captioned “Bold decisions pronounced under PM Modi” in Times of India, dated July 14, 2020, has praised the former prime minister, Narsimha Rao for his immense political will for dismantling the four decade old command and control model. Nirmala Sitharaman, in this article, has glorified several policy decisions of the governments headed by A B Vajpayee and Narendra Modi. Truly these policy decisions were responsible to take the country's economy towards pro-corporate and were against the interest of the common man.