MUCH to the shock of residents of Delhi, and also for concerned people across the country, municipal sanitation workers have again gone on strike in the national capital just months after they had carried out a 10-day strike in June last year. Even more surprising was the fact that the issues are the same – non-payment of wages. Like last year, garbage is piling up in the streets, allegations and counter allegations are flying fast and thick, the courts are involved and angry gheraos, dharnas and demonstrations are visible everywhere.

THE Left upsurge in Latin America appears to be abating. In October 2015 Jimmy Morales, the conservative candidate in Guatemala,  defeated the Left-leaning Sandra Torres in the presidential elections. On November 22, Mauricio Macri, the conservative presidential candidate in Argentina, defeated Daniel Scioli, his Peronist rival, by a narrow margin, to bring to an end a long period of Left ascendancy under Presidents Nestor Kirchner and his wife Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

THE Prime Minister’s Crop Insurance Scheme (PMCIS) was announced with much fanfare as the panacea for all risks faced by the farmers. Ironically, on the same day, news came out that in the year 2015 over 3,228 farmers had committed suicide in BJP-ruled Maharashtra. The phenomenon of farmers’ suicides has continued unabated for over two decades when the neo-liberal economic policies have been in operation. The ruling classes in a denial mode however, have sought to underplay the unprecedented human tragedy and linked farmers’ misfortunes to the weather gods.

THOUSANDS of people hit the streets across West Bengal on January 28 and staged demonstrations in district administrative headquarters over various issues, including the attack on democratic forces, on the call the Left Front. Demonstrations were held in 19 districts of the state on that day. Malda district organised this program a day before on January 27.The gatherings in all the districts were huge. After public meetings, memorandums were handed over by delegations.

The central trade unions reviewed the drastically deteriorating conditions of work and life of the working people and the government’s going ahead with labour law amendments, disinvestment of PSUs and allowing FDI in strategic sectors. The government, it appears, does not want to wait for legislating these anti-worker labour law amendments; it is taking away the rights of workers by way of executive orders and directing the state governments to carry out such pro-management amendments.