COMRADE Pandit Munde, a former member of the CPI(M) Maharashtra state committee, former secretary of the Aurangabad district committee, and founder-president of the CITU in Aurangabad, passed away at the age of 79 on May 28, 2024.Born in a poor peasant family in Beed district on June 12, 1945, he completed his graduation in commerce and in 1973 joined as a teacher at the Vasantrao Naik College in Aurangabad.
COMRADE Joseph Thomas, who passed away last year, was the first president of the Free Software Movement of India (FSMI). Joseph Thomas and I go back a long way: we were almost the same age, and relatively old among the FSMI activists.Joseph Thomas was clear that in the free software movement, we cannot focus only on software; we also need to address issues of hardware on which free software can run. It was a welcome corrective. What he was telling us at that time is what many of us know today: free software cannot work unless we look at the hardware as well.
THE CPI(M) Jammu and Kashmir state committee, in a statement issued on June 10, has condemned the terrorist attack on a bus carrying pilgrims in Reasi district in which nine persons were killed, and 33 others were injured.
THERE has been a significant diffusion of production occurring in the world economy. Many call this phenomenon a shift from a US-led world economy to a “multipolar world economy”, but no matter what one thinks of this description, the fact of diffusion is indubitable.
THE overall results of the Lok Sabha election are certainly a setback for the BJP. Getting 240 seats, it failed to achieve the absolute majority it had gained in the 2014 and 2019 elections.
There is need to ensure safe working conditions, mandatory rest breaks, and access to protective gear for workers in high-temperature environments.AS the sub-continent boils under extreme heat, Delhi touches 53°C and Nagpur crosses 56°C, deadly heat becomes the fate of the residents.
THE Construction Workers Federation of India (CWFI), in a statement issued on June 13, has deeply condoled the tragic death of 42 Indian migrant workers, mostly construction workers, who were killed in a devastating blaze which broke out in a sixth story building in the Mangaf area, south of Kuwait City on June 12, 2024.According to media reports, over a dozen workers were injured. Most of the deaths were due to smoke inhalation.
THE Karnataka state government has issued a notification extending the exemption for IT, ITES, Startups, Animation, Gaming, Computer Graphics, Telecom, BPO, KPO, and other knowledge-based industries from the Industrial & Establishment (Standing Orders) Act of 1946 for the next five years. This decision, despite strong opposition from trade unions and employees, continues a policy that has been in place for the past 25 years.The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has strongly condemned this move and has called on the state government to revoke the order immediately.
THE obsession of killing humans in the name of cow protection has now reached Chhattisgarh. Despite the clear murder and identification of some of the killers, if a case of culpable homicide is being made against unknown attackers, then it seems that the killers have got permission from the top to carry out mob lynching in the name of cow protection.
COMMODIFICATION of services is one of the major avenues of expanding the realm of capital in the neoliberal age. Commodity for Marx has no reference to corporeal reality. Something which is produced for sale whether it is goods or services does not make a conceptual difference in Marx’s notion of commodity. For Marx, commodity is a social relationship independent of its physical nature. The expansion of services in the count of GDP is partly because of commodification of services which were earlier supplied from a community or collectively owned pool.