Resurrecting ‘Garibi Hatao': Congress' Latest Confidence Trick

On the eve of Assembly polls in several states, the Congress-led UPA has resurrected the slogan introduced by Indira Gandhi 35 years ago, in an attempt to counterbalance the terror unleashed against the Naxalbari movement: ‘Garibi Hatao' (Eradicate Poverty) and the ‘20-point programme'.......Full text

Nobel for Class Peace

Not a few eyebrows were raised when the 2006 Nobel Prize for peace went to microcredit messiah  Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank (GB) rather than to the more likely candidates like the parties to the agreement between the Indonesian government and rebels in the Aceh region. ... Full text

Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations:
Divorcing Student Unions from Movements

The Lyngdoh Committee (henceforth LC) was set up by the UPA Government last year, in response to a directive by the Supreme Court, ostensibly to curb lavish spending of money, and violence in Students Union polls. Since the LC stipulates that all institutions of higher education, both private and public, should conduct Student Union elections every year, the recommendations have been appreciated in campuses where SU polls have been hanging in limbo for long. ...Full text

Dismantling of Public Health– Deadlier Sting Than Dengue!

With the drastic cut in health budgets in the era of liberalisation, we have seen a decade of several epidemics - plague, malaria, severe blood dysentery – forcing the Government to backtrack slightly and increase the health budget marginally. The Structural Adjustment Policy has severely affected our public health infrastructure, ...Full text

Congress Sheds Crocodile Tears even as Suicides and Blasts Continue to Rock the Country

Addressing a conclave of Chief Ministers of Congress-ruled states at Nainital, Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh called for greater care and sensitivity in handling the issues of agrarian crisis and terrorism so that peasants and Muslims do not feel alienated. ...Full text

Buy ULPA, Get AFSPA Free

You can feel the cold hand of fear grip you every evening in Imphal. The roads are deserted, save for the armed patrols, their guns ready and pointing. It is December 2004, barely months after the gruesome rape and murder of Th. Manorama and the tumultuous protests that rocked the state in its aftermath....Full text

THE LONG MARCH OF LIBERATION

“ Liberation appears at a time when India is in the throes of an acute economic and political crisis, when the class struggle within our country and outside grows sharper and sharper...”, read the first editorial of the first issue (November 1967) of the central organ of CPI (ML), " For the first time in India's history, the revolutionary peasant movement led by the working class has been able to smash a weak link in the feudal-comprador bourgeois-imperialist chain despite all the terror unleashed by the rulers. Naxalbari marks the beginning of a new era in India 's history... It is Naxalbari which has given the revolutionary working people of India their rightful place as a contingent of the world revolutionary forces." ...Full text

Liberation

[ We are publishing two editorials from the inaugural issue of Liberation, which appeared in November 1967 . By way of observing the 40th year of our publication, in the coming issues too we will be reproducing important articles and comments published in past numbers of Liberation at major junctures of national and international politics . ] ...Full text

UF Government And The Role Of "Marxists"

[What follows is the full text of the second editorial of Liberation, November 1967 issue.  The CPI (M)'s professed "non-class outlook" in matters of governance is here subjected to a rigorous Marxist-Leninist critique to show that in a class society it can only mean taking the class stand of the exploiters and oppressors.  Readers will notice that the dramatis personae have changed but the same sordid play of betrayal is going on before our very eyes: restraining, suppressing and murdering workers and peasants on the move as well as their revolutionary representatives, spreading reformist and constitutional illusions and treading the parliamentary path under the banner of coalition politics.] ...Full text

Bhagat Singh and Today's India

The birth centenary of Bhagat Singh should inspire the country, especially today's youth and all of us in the communist movement, to develop a deeper intimacy with his ideas. This will help us to appreciate not only his signal contributions to the anti-colonial freedom movement of his time but also his message for our present times. For today's generation of young Indians, Bhagat Singh will be of great help and inspiration in finding their moorings in today's changing times, especially on their voyage into the India of tomorrow. ...Full text

DIFFERENCES IN THE EUROPEAN LABOUR MOVEMENT

- V. I. Lenin

[ Published in December 1910 in the Bolshevik newspaper Zvezda, which was the predecessor of Pravda, the following article throws light on the material (economic) and political factors responsible for the rise of right reformism and 'left' anarchism within the working class movement.  We believe the basic lessons drawn here from the European experience, particularly Lenin's explanation on how the vicissitudes in government policies help strengthen both these deviations, will prove quite useful in the Indian context too. ]..Full text

AICCTU's November Campaign

Make AICCTU's 13th November Demonstration before Parliament a Big Success!
Fight for Social Security & Dignity! March Ahead for a Better Life!

On 25th August, a violent attack on migrant workers in Ludhiana , Punjab was unleashed by the Punjab police and district administration. The protesting workers were sent to jail for fighting for their legitimate rights. In another incident, 2 days earlier, two construction workers died under the debris of a wall that collapsed accidentally...Full text

The Veil, the ‘War on Terror', and the Women's Movement

Muslim women welcome a debate about the status of women in Islam. Intelligent, honest critique is an invaluable source of ideas for Muslims as we begin the process of reclaiming our religious and intellectual tradition. Muslim women also welcome feminist alliances with other women in the task of challenging the misuse of power by Muslim men - just as we can offer our own perspective on both women's advances and setbacks in the west ...Full text

Iraq Occupation: Haunted by the Spectre of Vietnam?

October 2006 was a bad month for the imperial forces occupying Iraq . More than 70 American soldiers have already died this month, (most of them reportedly in sniper attacks in the city of Baghdad !). This takes the count of fatalities among the occupying troops past 3000 even at an official estimate, and the situation in the war-ravaged country has provoked even President Bush to accept comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam ...Full text

Hugo Chavez's Address at the UN

First, and with all respect, I highly recommend this book by Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious intellectuals in America and the world, Chomsky. One of his most recent works is: Hegemony or Survival: America 's Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire Project). It's an excellent work to understand what's happened in the world in the 20th Century, what's currently happening, and the greatest threat on this planet; the hegemonic pretension of the North American imperialism endangers the human race's survival. ...Full text

TRIBUTE TO THE NOVEMBER REVOLUTION

Left March

For the Red Marines: 1918

Rally the ranks into a march!
Now's no time to quibble or browse there.
Silence, you orators!
You
have the floor,
Comrade Mauser. ...Full text