EARLY into his term as the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez reflected on how he had read “a book by Plekhanov a long time ago and it made a big impression on me. It was called The Role of the Individual in History.” That book, written by the Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov and published in 1898, is a reflection on the role of the idea of “great men” driving history forward, and of the rise of individual attacks of terrorism in Russia against the entrenched and wretched Tsarist system.

THE bicentenary of “Thol Seelai Porattam” (in Tamil) or “Maaru Marakkal Samaram” (in Malayalam) – the struggle by women of oppressed castes in the erstwhile Travancore to cover their upper bodies – was observed in Nagercoil, the headquarters of Kanniyakumari district in Tamil Nadu, on March 6. Tamil Nadu and Kerala Chief Ministers M K Stalin and Pinarayi Vijayan attended the event, joined by thousands of people.The erstwhile Travancore kingdom comprised parts of present-day southern Kerala and southern Tamil Nadu.

CPI(M)  Polit Bureau has issued the following statement on March 6, 2023THE Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) strongly condemns the savage post-poll violence unleashed by the BJP against the CPI(M), Left Front and opposition party cadres.  As the results were being declared on March 2 and the BJP was inching towards a majority, an orgy of violence marking the daylight murder of democracy in Tripura was unleashed.  Unwilling to accept that it won a wafer thin majority losing over 10 per cent of its vote share and the coalition losing 11 of its sitting seats, the BJP is mou

THE schedule for Karnataka assembly election is yet to be announced. Obviously many more ‘inaugurations’ (e.g., Bangalore-Mysore Expressway by PM on March 12) and ‘announcements’ are to be made, before model code of conduct comes into force.  The chief minister has announced an ‘agreement’ made with Foxcann for manufacturing iPhones which will provide one lakh jobs, and this agreement was promptly denied by Foxconn.

THE ever deepening systemic crisis of capitalism, the unprecedented pandemic, imminence of the second global recession in a decade (a phenomena not witnessed in the last eight decades) have all exposed the fact that under the neoliberal paradigm we are seeing a fast paced regression into barbarism.