Peoples Democracy newsletter

Brutal Attack on Peaceful Rally of Govt Employees, Teachers

PREDICTABLY the authoritarian Trinamool Congress government came down heavily on working and retired state government employees as well as school teachers when they tried to peacefully march towards the West Bengal Legislative Assembly on November 23 demanding payment of pending 35 per cent Dearness Allowance (DA) arrears. Many of them were lathi-charged and received blows from the police and bled. The most shameful was the fact that the police personnel, especially the ‘civic’ (casual or ad hoc appointee) police, did not spare even women and aged pensioners.

Australia’s Growing Anti-China Military Ties with the United States

ON November 15, 2022, during the G20 summit in Bali (Indonesia), Australia’s prime minister Anthony Albanese told journalists that his country seeks a ‘stable relationship with China’. The main reason for this, Albanese said, is because China is ‘Australia’s largest trading partner. They are worth more than Japan, the US, and the Republic of Korea together combined’. China is Australia’s largest destination for exports, and it is the largest exporter into Australia. This has been the situation since 2009.

The 2022 Data Privacy Bill: A New Version or the Charter of Surveillance Capitalism?

THE new avatar of the Indian Data Protection Bill 2022 is not simply the rebirth of the earlier 2019 one. The objective of the earlier Data Protection Bill 2019 was to give a legal framework for the Supreme Court's Puttuswamy judgement of privacy as a fundamental right. The 2022 Bill has a different purpose. This version proclaims the citizen's right to privacy but allows the government to override this right at its will. The other objective of the new Bill is to enable big business—Indian and foreign—to use our data for their benefit.

BJP’s Vicious Campaign in Gujarat

THE BJP campaign for the Gujarat assembly election gives an insight as to how Gujarat became the laboratory for the Hindutva forces and how the corporate-communal axis was forged that became known later as the Gujarat model.Some of Amit Shah’s assertions in his election speeches have been startling for many outside Gujarat, but they reflect how the RSS-BJP have succeeded in inverting the reality and building a false narrative. According to Shah, the communal pogrom against Muslims in 2002 was actually an instance of “rioters” being “taught a lesson”.

15th Tamil Nadu State Conference of CITU

THE 15th Tamil Nadu state conference of the CITU was held in the popular tourist town of Kanyakumari between November 4 and 6. More than 700 people attended the conference, which ended with the call to strengthen the fight against the anti-worker policies of the government.The reception committee organised a martyrs’ torch rally on November 3 evening. It was a commemorative event for 96 comrades of Kanyakumari who have sacrificed their lives for CITU and the red flag. Torches were brought from various places of the district.

The Relevance of Comrade R B More to the Dalit Movement

AS we approach the 120th birth anniversary of Comrade Ramchandra Babaji More (on March 1, 2023) it would be important to understand the relevance to the present dalit movement of this first revolutionary among the depressed classes who joined the Communist Party in Maharashtra way back in the twenties of the last century.In the recently held national executive meeting of the Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch on July 17-18, 2022, among the 14 tasks underlined in the annual plan, the first is to use the celebrations of Dr B R Ambedkar’s birth anniversary on April 14 and utilie it to propagate against

Withdraw UGC Advisory Forthwith

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement on November 18:THE Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) strongly rejects the UGC chairperson, M Jagdish Kumar’s letter to all governors to “encourage” universities in their states to hold lectures on themes such as the “ideal king” in Indian philosophy, as well as, ‘khap panchayats’ and their “democratic traditions” to celebrate India as the “mother of democracy” on Constitution day on November, 26.This is in direct contravention of the framework of our C

The Collapse of FTX

THE large cryptocurrency exchange FTX went out of business on November 11. Many have likened this phenomenon to the collapse of the investment banking firm Lehman Brothers during the financial crisis of 2008, believing the FTX collapse to be as important an event in the cryptocurrency world as the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the official financial system.

Second MDM workers’ conference held

THE second conference of Mid-Day Meal Workers’ Federation of India (MDMWFI), held from November 4-5, at Ranjana Nirula Nagar, Mallu Swarjyam Manch, in Hyderabad, Telangana, called for intensifying the struggle for basic rights of the mid-day meal workers of the country. The conference, held after a gap of seven years due to the pandemic, resolved to hold protests throughout India on December 11, 2022, demanding minimum wages and pensions for the workers who are now paid only Rs1,000 per month, that too only for ten months. It is also resolved that the federation would oppose the efforts o

North Bengal: Grand Chessboard of BJP-TMC

IN the districts of the northern part of West Bengal i.e., in North Bengal, a controversy is being purposefully raised to create an atmosphere of confusion. It is being floated by some media and some intellectuals that North Bengal will be made a separate state or union territory. It is even being said that some parts of Assam and Bihar, would be taken into the new union territory that would be carved out. Not only that, various opinions are being propagated through various media channels on the basis of a map of the so-called proposed union territory.

Pages

report Big protest action against bribery, drugs and crime against women THE CPI(M) in Tripura has organised a statewide protest movement on three key demands – dismissal of state minister Sudhangshu Das who admitted to accepting bribe from contractors and government suppliers, immediate identification and arrest of the drug-traffickers who transported two huge consignments of banned Eskuf cough syrup, and prompt action against the perpetrators of several recent dastardly... Read More	report SIR aims to overthrow democratic system, must be rolled back Read More	report Kochi Global City Project to generate 1.20 lakh direct jobs and 3.6 lakh indirect jobs Read More	PB Statements Ensure Ceasefire in Gaza Read More
PB Statements Oppose the Extension of SIR Read More