ALL over the country, AIDWA units are engaged in a campaign from November 7-15, to disseminate the message of its forthcoming national conference. The tenth all India conference of the AIDWA is occurring at a particularly significant moment of time, when the challenges before the women’s movement in our country are increasing by the day. In the struggle against gender oppression, and the fight for justice, and equality, AIDWA has been playing a leading role over the past three years, and has been uniting multiple voices of protest against the escalating instances of violence against women.

AS the next round of climate negotiations opens in the Polish capital of Warsaw, there is generally no expectation of any dramatic development. This nineteenth Conference of Parties (COP 19) of the United Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) is not the deadline for any particular piece of negotiation to be finalised, finished or simply wound up. However despite the absence of such deadlines, there are a number of significant issues on the agenda.

ADVANCED capitalist country governments, no matter what their differences, generally put up a common front. They do not attack one another in public. It was surprising therefore when recently the United States attacked German economic policy in an official document and the German government replied in kind. It showed the kind of desperation to which advanced capitalist countries are getting pushed these days by the persistence of the global economic crisis.

THE term McCarthyism refers to the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism. The US senator Joseph McCarthy led a witch-hunt against communists during the 1950s claiming that “there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathisers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere”. He could not prove his claims and later the term McCarthyism applied to similar anti-communist activities.

IN the run-up to the 2014 general elections, we are being bombarded by a bizarre reconstruction of our history.Karl Marx had once famously said that Men make history but not under circumstances chosen by them. Given that the circumstances do not favour them, did not favour them since our independence when we adopted our Republic Constitution, the RSS all along has been attempting to create make-believe circumstances that would be favourable for the pursuit of its project of converting India into a rabidly intolerant fascistic `Hindu Rashtra’.