AFTER its election in 2014, the Modi government had promised to create 20 million jobs in five years. However, the recent debate on the job creation data shows that unemployment is at its peak at the end of the five year term of the Modi government. Curiously the current government has rubbished this data, without releasing any of its own statistics. The argument being made by the spokespersons of the BJP is that this data does not represent the true picture as most of the livelihood has been created in the form of self-employment and is largely in the informal sector.

TIME was when the annual budget of the central government used to be a serious affair. It reflected no doubt the government’s class bias, but how exactly this class bias was expressed through the various budgetary proposals had to be established by scrutinising budgetary figures, which did signify something. There was always of course some window-dressing, but only at the fringes; the core of the budget was a matter for serious scrutiny. Such is no longer the case under the Modi government.

WHILE working for the implementation of the general task of building proletarian political parties on the basis of the internationalist ideas of Marxism, Marx and Engels at the same time stressed the importance of taking into account the distinctive features of the development of each country, the difficulties and obstacles that confront the working class movement in its progress.By the end of the 1870s, revolutionary working class parties had sprung up in quite a few countries: in Austria in 1874, in Denmark in 1876,  and in Belgium and Spain in 1879.

TENS of thousands of people, in some estimates a million, thronged the Brigade Parade Ground on February 3 at the call of the Left Front, to assert alternative policies and politics. One of the largest ever mobilisations in Kolkata’s historic ground threw up a challenge to the communal and political polarisation in the state, triggering a new stage of confidence as well as struggle.The rally came as a follow up of series of struggles of different sections of toiling people and huge rallies and padajatras in the state.

ON January 29, the AIDWA Kerala state committee had a review meeting of the organisation’s work in the broader campaign for the historic Women’s Wall on January 1 this year. Some of the experiences and the lessons have a wider significance for progressive movements that seek to challenge and change the unequal status quo.As is known the decision for such a Womens’ Wall programme was taken at the initial meeting called by the chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.