January 15, 2019 marked the 100th anniversary of the murder of Rosa Luxemburg, the revolutionary communist leader.Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were the leaders of the Spartacus league and went on to found the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).Both Rosa and Liebknecht were arrested and brutally killed by the so called “Freikorps”, demobilized soldiers acting under the instruction of the social-democratic regime.Rosa Luxemburg was an outstanding Marxist theoretician and steadfast revolutionary.
THE recent attack on the CBI, once again, reconfirms our understanding of the character of the Modi government. This government is hell-bent to undermine all constitutional institutions in the country. Their autonomy is a hindrance to the attainability of a full fledged ‘hindu rashtra’, (the pernicious fascistic ideological project of the RSS) despite the BJP being in government with a majority of its own. This requires the transformation of the existing secular democratic republic into the RSS vision.
THE Modi government has got a Constitutional amendment adopted in Parliament providing for 10 percent reservation for economically weaker sections in the general category, i.e., those who are not in the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), or, Other Backward Classes (OBCs).ELECTION PLOYThe Constitutional Amendment Bill was passed in great haste – in a span of three days beginning from the union cabinet decision to its adoption by both the houses of parliament. This has, no doubt, been done with an eye to the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections which is just a few we
THE Delhi police has submitted a chargesheet in court against Kanhaiya Kumar, former president of the JNU Students Union and nine others on charges of sedition. This has come nearly three years after the police arrested Kanhaiya Kumar and others in a cooked up case regarding alleged anti-national slogans raised during a demonstration on the campus.It is the vindictive attitude of the BJP government that led the police to invoke the charge of sedition (Section 124 A of the Indian Penal Code) – a law made by the British colonial rulers to use it as a weapon against the leaders of the freedom
IN the wake of major electoral reverses for the BJP in the recently held assembly elections to the five states, it has been widely recognized that the agrarian crisis and its most inhuman expression-the burgeoning farmers’ suicides have taken a heavy toll in the electoral battle field. However, commentators are loudly declaring nemesis for the ruling dispensation on another count.
WHEN the first volume of Capital appeared, the Second Congress of the International Workingmen’s Association had just finished its work in Lausanne. PROLETARIANINTERNATIONALISM While drafting the documents of the International, Marx believed that the forces that unite the working class—the forces of proletarian internationalism—would prevail in the labour movement.
KERALA'S renaissance movements in the past 100 years made big strides. These movements had helped women in the struggle to shake off patriarchy and advance towards gender equality. But unfortunately, following the recent Supreme Court verdict which allowed the entry of women of all ages to the Sabarimala temple, there had been attempts to belittle the achievements of the women in Kerala and to sideline them as second class citizens.
THE National Rural Employment Guarantee Act that brought the MGNREGS into being was a unique piece of legislation in the history of independent India. It stipulated that employment was to be made available on demand, within a fortnight of being asked for, failing which an unemployment allowance had to be paid. True, its scope was confined only to rural areas, and it promised employment only upto 100 days per household per year; but it made employment a right.
THIS year also, the Indian Science Congress held in Jalandhar, covered itself with shame; as it has been doing for the last few years. Venkataramanan Ramakrishnan, the Nobel Prize winning scientist, had called it a circus for discussing in Mumbai session of the science congress the irrational: ancient India had aircrafts, genetic engineering, etc.
THE country has witnessed a massive two days countrywide general strike on January 8-9, 2019 by the working people against the anti-people, anti-worker and anti-national policies of the BJP-led government of India. The general strike was called by all, in the united platform of 10 central trade unions and almost all independent national federations.