ON October 30, 2022, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known as Lula) won the second-round of the presidential election in Brazil. The vote, in the end, was tight, with Lula prevailing with 50.9 per cent (60 million votes) over the incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro’s 49 per cent (58 million votes). Lula won decisively in the north and north-east of Brazil, areas that have large populations of Afro-Brazilian and indigenous voters, while Bolsonaro prevailed in the south.

AMIDST a festive atmosphere, A Vijayaraghavan, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M) inaugurated the Skill Development Centre built by the Major Jaipal Singh Memorial Trust at Brijpuri in North-East Delhi on October 31, 2022. This is the area which lost 54 innocent lives and which saw widespread damage to property in one of the worst communal violence engineered by the RSS-BJP in February 2020.

CPI(M) Central Committee met in New Delhi from October 29-31, 2022.  It has issued the following statement on November 1.SHOCKING ACCIDENT IN MORBI, GUJARATThe Central Committee expressed its deep condolences to the families of over 140 people who lost their lives in the tragic collapse of the bridge in Morbi town in Gujarat. Many more are injured. The injured must be immediately provided with all required medical care and assistance.  Reportedly, this bridge was opened after renovation without a safety audit being conducted.

THE world today seems very far away from those heady revolutionary days when the October Revolution in Russia happened. It is 105 years since this historic revolution took place which resulted in the world’s first socialist State.  It is 31 years since the end of the Soviet Union, the period since which was marked by the ascendancy of imperialism.The three decades since 1991 saw a renewed round of aggressive wars of intervention by US imperialism and NATO.  The targets were developing countries which did not possess nuclear weapons and had comparatively weaker armed forces.

YAMAHA, a Japanese two-wheeler manufacturing plant operating at Oragadam, in Kanchipuram district employs around 2,500 workers including 900 permanent workers.A majority of permanent workers went on sit-in strike for ten days from October 11-20, demanding recognition of their union as per the legal and labour rules.