THE Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue (“the Quad”) between India, Australia, Japan and the US has got a fresh lease of life. In a significant development for the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific region, Quad held its first minister-level meeting on September 27 in New York.The efforts to build an Indo-Pacific security architecture was initiated in 2007, when for the  first time the four countries met on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum summit in the Philippines.

CPI(M)  Polit Bureau has issued the following statement on October 17, 2019THE JNU authorities have ordered that the office of the JNU Students Union should be vacated. This is the latest and flagrant attempt to suppress the elected student body.The university authorities had refused to notify the union for the previous year 2018-19 too. This is being done despite the judicial scrutiny which legitimised the election to the JNU Students Union this year, where students have participated in very large numbers.

PORTUGAL, Austria and Poland had elections to their respective parliaments recently. While the Social Democrats were victorious in Portugal, Conservatives won in Austria and Poland. A noteworthy feature is the decrease in the vote share of the far-right party in Austria, a coalition partner of the Conservatives in the previous government; the entry of Left into Polish parliament and the marginal setback to the Left parties in Portugal.In Austria, the ruling Conservative Austrian People's Party won 37.5 per cent of the votes, retaining power.

THE Bank Employees Federation of India(BEFI) has stated that the interest rate cuts will not reverse the slowdown presently witnessed in the country. Reacting to the bimonthly policy statement of the RBI released on October 4, the BEFI issued the statement.The BEFI has stated, “Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of Reserve Bank of India, on  October 4 has reduced the key bank rate or the rate at which the RBI lends to banks for the fifth time in a row since February, till now by 1.35 per cent bringing it to 5.15 per cent and intends to continue further cuts to revive growth in the economy.

WOMEN activists from the Left progressive parties and movements gathered at Essen, Germany last month in the Feminist Futures Festival organised by Rosa Luxemburg Stiflung to share their experiences about their struggles when combating the right-wing forces in their respective countries and discuss strategies and ideas for an international networking to strengthen this movement. The participants included women from the continents of Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America.