IN Minneapolis, US, after an unarmed and unresisting George Floyd, a 46 year old Afro-American, was killed by a white cop after being arrested for the non-violent, alleged crime of trying to pass a fake $20 note, anti-racist protests erupted. Minneapolis cops, with a reputation for violence, responded to the initial protest with tear gas, rubber bullets and use of force. Enraged by their reaction, the protests became more determined, leading to the torching of a police station, damage to stores and other businesses, and the blockading of streets and bridges.

THE capitalist world has been gripped by a crisis since 2008, the basic cause of which is the unsustainable neoliberal capitalist system.Crisis-ridden capitalism has been trying its level best to come out of this crisis. But whatever methods and steps were adopted had failed to overcome this problem, unlike in earlier such crises. This showed the hollowness and vulnerabilities of the finance driven neoliberal order.In this backdrop, the sudden and unforeseen spread of the coronavirus pandemic has come like a bolt from the blue.

Apart from providing succour to distressed, running community kitchens, providing relief to Amphan victims, the Left parties in West Bengal have organised protest movements highlighting peoples’ demands. On the one hand, the central government is sharpening its attack on peoples’ livelihood; on the other the state government has shown a paralysed reaction to both Covid-19 and recent cyclone. The Left parties have raised peoples’ issues through demonstrations and symbolic protests.16 Left and allied parties organised a protest movement on May 28.

TWENTY-two opposition parties met on May 22, to exchange views on the extraordinary situation in the country arising out of the Covid-19 pandemic. The economy has collapsed. All sections of society face acute distress. Livelihoods have been destroyed. Lives have been lost.The parties applaud the heroic efforts of all public health personnel, particularly doctors, nurses, paramedics as also police and security forces personnel, safai karamacharis and those maintaining essential services like water, power etc. in these challenging times, across the country.

WITH the US walking out of the Open Skies Agreement, the US is signalling to the world that it intends to return to days of Pax Americana that existed post Second World War, when it was the sole possessor of nuclear weapons. It has already walked out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 under George Bush Junior, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) under Trump. The only nuclear arms control treaty that still remains in place, is New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which provides a rough limit and parity on the US and Russia’s nuclear arsenals.