A FRESH wave of nuclear arms race is underway. The discourse is fast veering towards giving legitimacy to the use of strategic nuclear weapons in a limited way in a battle field. As usual America is leading the demand for such legitimacy, followed by Russia, to make the war more brutal and the world more dangerous. The nuclear silos are being broken down to integrate the nuclear with the non-nuclear military options.
I've got the children to tend The clothes to mend The floor to mop The food to shop Then the chicken to fry The baby to dry I got company to feed The garden to weed I've got shirts to press The tots to dress The can to be cut I gotta clean up this hut Then see about the sick And the cotton to pick. Shine on me, sunshine Rain on me, rain Fall softly, dewdrops And cool my brow again. Sun, rain, curving sky Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone Star shine, moon glow
WITH Rahul Gandhi’s announcement recently at Raipur that his Party had taken a “historic decision” to introduce an income guarantee scheme for the poor, and with the general anticipation that the Modi government’s last budget will also announce an income support scheme in some form, at least for the “farmers”, the idea of a “universal basic income” for the Indian population is once more in the air.
IN a clear symbol of frustration and fear as the people are coming out in growing numbers against the misrule of BJP led government in the state, BJP hoodlums attacked a rally of AIDWA in Udaypur of Gomati district on January 28.
THE final version of the political programme of the First International and the decisive settling of accounts with the Bakuninist anarchists came at the Congress of the International at The Hague in September 1872. Marx had been busy with the preparation of the Congress since the beginning of the year.
His appearance stirred great interest among the Congress delegates. He was also the leading personality in the bourgeois Press, and not least in the reports of police agents who had been sent to Holland to keep watch on the Congress.
KRISHNA Sobti (93), eminent Hindi fiction writer, passed away on January 25, at a hospital in New Delhi. She was ill for a long time but she was mentally active and creative.
KARNATAKA State IT and ITeS Employees Union (KITU) demanded the government to invoke the provisions of Industrial Employment Standing Orders (IESO) Act, and suitably adopt it to the requirements of the IT, ITeS and knowledge industry in the state. It demanded that the regulations of conditions of service governing the IT, ITeS, knowledge industries etc to be defined with the participation of employers and employees.
A STATE-level event to mark the bicentennial birth anniversary of Karl Marx was organised in the steel city of Jamshedpur on January 21. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Prakash Karat was the main speaker. The Michel John Auditorium packed to its capacity with hundreds of industrial workers, peasants, employees, students, youth, women and intellectuals.
SANMAR Group, Chemplast (Plant III) in Mettur, Salem district, Tamil Nadu, dismissed 94 workers for joining the general strike call given by trade unions on January 8 and 9. Recently, 100 workers of the Plant had joined the CITU and despite serving prior strike notice to the management, 94 of them were dismissed and were obstructed from entering the Plant on January 10.