THE two-day general strike called by the Central Trade Unions on January 8 and 9, 2019 will go down as an important landmark in the history of the working class movement in India.
ON the December 3, 2018, remains of cow-flesh were found in a field in Mahav village, Bulandhshahr district. There was an uproar by people alleging ‘cow slaughter’ and, in a short time, hundreds of men collected shouting slogans about ‘mother cow’ and ‘mother India’. Some people filled a trolley with the remains and drove it to the main road in front of the Chingraoti Chowki (police post) and blocked the road.
A CPI(M) delegation comprising of Brinda Karat and Subhashini Ali (PB members), Surinder Singh (member, state secretariat, CPIM) and Jagveer Bhatti (district committee member, CPIM) visited Naya Bas and Chindraoti villages in Siyana block, Bulandshahar on January 5.
THE massive mobilization and Rural Harthaal called by Kisan organisations in support of the 48 hours all India workers strike were successful in many parts of the country. The rural strike was successful in states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Tripura. In other states there were massive mobilizations and road and rail blockade. Transport was off the road in large rural tract across the country. AIKS, Bhumi Adhikar Andolan and AIKSCC have extended support to the workers strike.
MARX wrote Capital especially for the working class, for the struggle of the workers. With special emphasis on the history of English capitalism, he made clear the manner in which not only the material means of production are being constantly created and reproduced anew in the course of English capitalist production, but the conditions for exploitation as well. With the piling up, the accumulation of, capital, its power is extended over an ever-increasing number of wage-workers.
MOHAMMAD Salim, Member of Parliament in Lok Sabha termed the triple talaq bill as unnecessary and inappropriate. Participating in the discussion on December 27 he said exactly a year ago we had discussed about this issue and we had opposed it even at that time. In the Rajya Sabha a committee was formed but the report is still awaited; then you brought in an ordinance. This shows how parliamentary democracy is functioning under your regime; all with desperation.
JANUARY 1, 2019: It was no wall, literally it was a fortress. Tens of thousands of women gathered on the western side of National Highway to imprint a new history. The women’s wall became multilayer fortress in through all districts on the first day of 2019. The wall became a fortress of humanity, equality and unity. All sections of women comprising of agricultural workers, teachers, nurses, Kudumbashree women, coir and cashew workers, students and prominent writers, artists, actors joined the women’s wall.
ON the intervening night of January 1, a few hours after a women’s wall organized across Kerala, two women, named Bindu Ammini and Kanakadurga entered the Sabarimala temple at 3.45 am. They started their pilgrimage from Pamba at 1.30 am and reached Sannidhanam at 3.45 am, the sanctum sanctorum of Ayyappa temple under police escort in plain clothes.
The Prime Minister has fired his first salvo for the 2019 general elections through a set-up interview with news agency ANI. He claimed that 2018 has been a ‘shining year’ for India! The electoral results of the 2004; following the Vajpayee claim of “shining India” is there for all to see. PM Modi seems to be reading the ‘writing on the wall’!
OVER Thirty thousand farmers and agricultural workers at the call of AIKS and AIAWU from six North Bengal districts flooded the streets of Siliguri in North Bengal , to protest against the anti farmer policies of the Modi-led Union government and the West Bengal state government on December 27. All Siliguri bound trains virtually turned into ‘Kishan Express’ on that day and a day before. Many of them had come from far flung mountainous belt or distant rural areas in the Bengal bordering Assam and Bangladesh.