ON the invitation of the international department of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Tapati Mukherjee and I attended the South Asian Theoretical Workshop as representatives of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Apart from the CPI(M), representatives of the CPI and the AIFB attended the workshop from India. In total, representatives of 15 Left parties from South Asia participated in it.

JAWAHARLAL Nehru, the architect of India's independent foreign policy, had prioritised non-alignment and the solidarity with the developing world as the main guiding force. The nation was guided by this policy till the late 1980's. This year also marks the 70th anniversary of the historic Asian Relation Conference (ARC) hosted by India. The conference chaired by Nehru marked the arrival of India on the world stage. It was attended by many leaders from Asian countries which were on the verge of gaining independence.

THE entire political class in Brazil, cutting across the ideological divide, seem to be living on a knives edge. An activist section of the Brazilian judiciary has been energised since the ouster of President Dilma Roussef last year. There were no specific corruption charges against Dilma Roussef. The accusations against her were that she lied about the size of the government deficit and that she borrowed from a state owned bank to cover up the budgetary deficit.

THE 106th International Labour Conference was held on June 5-16, at Geneva. The governing body of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) after several rounds of meetings held throughout the year finalised four topics for discussion and adopting resolutions. They were- i) labour migration; ii) employment and decent work for peace and resilience; iii) recurrent discussion on the strategic objective of fundamental principles and rights at work; iv) abrogation of certain old conventions.

THE 14th Congress of the South African Communist Party (SACP) held in Birchwood Conference Centre, Ekurhuleni, near Pretoria from July 10-15, 2017 was a resounding success.  The key slogan was: `Defend, Advance, Deepen the National Democratic Revolution and the Vanguard Role of the SACP’.  The key task focused by the party was to anchor its medium term strategic outlook around driving a second and more radical phase of the transition in the country with the demonopolisation of the economy of South Africa.