SO the reasons for the US meddling and interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela are finally out, direct from the horse’s mouth. Of course it is about oil, gold, diamonds and all the other natural resources that Venezuela has. But above all, it is about something more, as US president Donald Trump has stated in his State of the Union, ceremonial address to the US citizens.

THE Vision document of BJP for the assembly election of 2018 had promised to give 50,000 government jobs to the unemployed youths of Tripura within one year if they formed government. But after 11 months of the BJP led government in office, the much hyped promise of 50,000 government jobs remains unfulfilled. Further, the moves of the government make it clear that it wants to close the doors of government employment for the youth.

AFTER its election in 2014, the Modi government had promised to create 20 million jobs in five years. However, the recent debate on the job creation data shows that unemployment is at its peak at the end of the five year term of the Modi government. Curiously the current government has rubbished this data, without releasing any of its own statistics. The argument being made by the spokespersons of the BJP is that this data does not represent the true picture as most of the livelihood has been created in the form of self-employment and is largely in the informal sector.

TIME was when the annual budget of the central government used to be a serious affair. It reflected no doubt the government’s class bias, but how exactly this class bias was expressed through the various budgetary proposals had to be established by scrutinising budgetary figures, which did signify something. There was always of course some window-dressing, but only at the fringes; the core of the budget was a matter for serious scrutiny. Such is no longer the case under the Modi government.

WHILE working for the implementation of the general task of building proletarian political parties on the basis of the internationalist ideas of Marxism, Marx and Engels at the same time stressed the importance of taking into account the distinctive features of the development of each country, the difficulties and obstacles that confront the working class movement in its progress.By the end of the 1870s, revolutionary working class parties had sprung up in quite a few countries: in Austria in 1874, in Denmark in 1876,  and in Belgium and Spain in 1879.