Caution: Saffronisation of Doordarshan and All India Radio

THE National Alliance of Journalists (NAJ) and the Delhi Union of Journalists, in a joint statement on March 16, have expressed serious concern at the virtual capture of India’s Prasar Bharati, which runs both the Doordarshan and All India Radio, by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), through its own news agency, Hindustan Samachar.

CITU Urges Karnataka Governor to Reject Amendment to Factories Act

The new amendment extends working hours from nine to twelve and removes restrictions on women working late-night shifts.THE Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has written to the Karnataka governor Vajubhai Vala and urged him not to give his assent to the amendment to the Factories act passed by the Karnataka Assembly.If passed, the new amendments would render changes to six sections of the Factories Act 1948. The new provisions would drastically change life inside and outside the factories.The maximum working hours have been revised to 12 hours/day, up to 48 hours/week.

Fighting for Justice: April 5 Delhi March by Farmers, Workers & Agri Workers

UNDER the leadership of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), and All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU), the working classes of India, including workers, peasants, and agricultural workers, have decided to step up their ongoing struggles in response to the government's anti-farmer and anti-worker policies.A statement issued by the three organisations on March 10, mentions that a joint campaign was launched after the convention held in Delhi on September 5, 2022 to address issues that affect the people and mobilise them to demand pro-people policies t

WB: Sagardighi Bypolls: People’s Intent is Clear

AS expected, the extent of people’s discontent with the misrule of authoritarian Trinamool regime was borne out in the outcome of Sagardighi by-election, occasioned by the death of sitting minister Subrata Saha in December last year. The TMC had been winning from Sagardighi in Murshidabad since 2011, three times in a row, and the by poll was considered a cakewalk, for in 2021, Saha had won by a massive margin of over 50,000 votes defeating his BJP rival Mafuza Khatun. The Left Front supported Congress candidate SKM Hasanuzzaman came third.

The US, UK and Australia’s Nuclear Submarine Deal

THE recent Australia, US and UK 368 billion dollar deal on buying nuclear submarines has been termed by Paul Keating, a former Australian PM, as the worst deal in all history. It commits Australia to buy conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines which will be delivered earliest in the 2040s. These will be based on new nuclear reactor designs yet to be developed by UK.

Maha: AIKS Leads Kisan March on Onion Price

THE AIKS in Maharashtra began a 10,000-strong kisan long march from Nashik to Mumbai on March 13, 2023 on a 17-point charter of demands, the most prominent among which was remunerative price particularly for onions, and also for cotton, soyabean, tur, green gram, milk, and hirda.

Solidarity in Struggle: Farmers and Workers unite to Save India

LAKHS of workers, farmers, and agricultural workers are preparing to march to Delhi to join the Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh rally organised by the CITU, AIKS and AIAWU. These three organisations have been conducting joint struggles at the state and national levels for the past few years, but the Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh rally has an added importance because it is being organised at a crucial juncture.

ED: Weapon against Opposition

HERALDING a new offensive against the opposition by the Modi government, there has been a spate of activities by the central agencies – the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).In the past two weeks, the CBI summoned for questioning Manish Sisodia, deputy chief minister of Delhi, and arrested him. Since then, while he was in jail, he has been arrested again by the ED.

UN High Seas Treaty: Potential Game Changer?

ON March 3, 2023, after almost a decade of contentious negotiations under the aegis of the International Conference on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, usually termed BBNJ, almost 200 nations meeting in New York finally agreed upon a treaty to protect the oceans and the sea-bed lying beyond the 200 nautical miles (370km) of territorial waters of different countries. This covers about two-thirds of the world’s oceans by area.

Ten Years after the Death of Hugo Chávez

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.

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