‘THE heart of the city comes to a standstill!’, ‘Stranded Vehicles’, ‘Total traffic jam between 12 and 3 pm’, ‘Women Squatting right in the middle of Road in front of Freedom Park’, ‘A Deluge of People’ – these were some of the screaming headlines in the print media in Bangalore on February 13, 2015.

THE terror attack on the offices of the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo on January 7 that claimed the lives of 12 journalists, has sent shock waves around the world. On the following day, a hyper market was targeted by a lone terrorist. Four people were killed in that attack. Two policemen were also killed in the three days in January. Paris had become a city virtually under siege.

THE BJP-Sangh Parivar led Narendra Modi government at the centre during its eight months of rule has single handedly accelerated, even completely cemented, the integration of Indian monopoly capitalism with the imperialist centres of finance-capital of the developed industrialised countries.

MORE than 400 parents, mostly women, filled the Vanamali Hall in Dadar of Mumbai beyond its capacity at the call of Anudanit Shiksha Bachao Samiti (ASBS) for a convention on implementation in letter and spirit of the Right to Education Act in the coming academic year (2015-2016).

IT took nearly 24 hours from Bhubaneswar by rail and road to reach Nawarangpur district headquarters. The journey took eight hours more than required due to an extraordinary situation prevalent in this part of the world. The Maoists had found an innovative way of fighting American Imperialism-to blow up railway tracks that link these rich regions filled with poor people to the other parts of Odisha. The express train was literally being dragged to Damanjodi in Koraput district from where we were to proceed by road.