Díaz-Canel, the president of Cuba, has reaffirmed the firm commitment: We will not give up; we will not betray; and we will never surrender.
President Miguel M Díaz-Canel Bermúdez was delivering a speech in early-October, 2018 during the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of Cuba’s independence struggle in La Demajagua.Read More »
UNIONS vowed today to fight plans being cooked up by the Tories for a renewed attack on public-sector wages via the introduction of regional and performance-related pay.
Millions of public-service workers, including NHS staff and local authority workers, could find themselves financially penalised under such plans, which the unions fear will be announced by Chancellor Philip Hammond in next week’s Budget.Read More »
After a summer of record-breaking heatwaves and devastating wildfires, 2018 is shaping up to be one of the planet’s hottest years in recorded history.
From January through September, the average global temperature was 1.39°F above the 20th century average of 57.5°F, making it the fourth warmest year-to-date on record, and only 0.43°F lower than the record-high set in 2016 for the same period, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Wednesday. NOAA’s global temperature dataset record dates back to 1880.Read More »
As we mark Karl Marx’s 200th birth anniversary, it is clear that the emancipation of labour from capitalist alienation and exploitation is a task that still confronts us. Marx’s concept of the worker is not limited to European white males, but includes Irish and Black super-exploited and therefore doubly revolutionary workers, as well as women of all races and nations. But, his research and his concept of revolution go further, incorporating a wide range of agrarian non-capitalist societies of his time, from India to Russia and from Algeria to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, often emphasising their gender relations. In his last, still partially unpublished writings, he turns his gaze Eastward and Southward. In these regions outside Western Europe, he finds important revolutionary possibilities among peasants and their ancient communistic social structures, even as these are being undermined by their formal subsumption under the rule of capital. In his last published text, he envisions an alliance between these non-working-class strata and the Western European working class.
I grew up in a house in North Calcutta in the Shyambazar locality, on what was then called Upper Circular Road. The address was 158/A. It was an apartment building with eight flats that were rented out by the owners. It was a six storied building quite tall by the standards of those times. The building was constructed in 1939. This building was well known to people involved with the Communist Party of India, since Ajoy Ghosh used to live there for a while. Later another left intellectual associated with the CPI, Chin Mohan Sehanavis lived there until 1959. My parents, who lived in the same building, were both connected with the communist movement in the 1940s and 1950s. I grew up in a politically charged atmosphere and had the opportunity to see many stalwarts of the early left movement in India. I was too young to understand politics at that time but most of the CPI leaders were “uncles” or “aunts” to me. On the opposite side of the main road was a sprawling slum where migrant workers lived—mainly from Bihar—who worked in the large number of flour mills and oil mills in the neighbourhood. Skirting the slum were about half a dozen tea stalls which hardly did much business. My father told me that most of them had been set up by the Intelligence Bureau of the police to keep a tab on the happenings at 158/A.Read More »
This is perhaps the era of Anti-trafficking ‘Jihad’. There are Ministry of home affairs, scores of NGOs, both National and International, the ministry of women and child welfare in majority of countries, Women activists, civil society organisations and who are not in this campaign? Certainly no one supports trafficking of human beings and everyone will be interested to lend their voices in support of the trafficked men with special focus to women and children. But why this level of hype created globally centering trafficking? All sorts of media including social media now-a-days appeared to be super active in campaigning against trafficking. One may come across several sensational stories focusing victims of trafficking and or dear devil rescue operations which are published in reputed journals. Even the left leaning publication houses are no exception. They also have joined the band wagon without questioning or going deeper into the issues. There are serious questions which are many and multiple in nature. Why some individuals are trafficked and in which occupations? Why trafficking business continues its rein even in the modern era and what factors fuel trafficking and what sort of social and political system promote trafficking and why? These are remained unanswered in those signed articles and in many such publications. All different stories published in these media are designed to draw the readers’ sympathy towards the victims and to raise their anger against some ‘invisible’ individuals or groups who are termed as traffickers. As if it is a plain and simple battle between good and bad people. There are no other factors, no social or structural barriers it is the greed of some demonic characters who should be put to the jail or be hanged.Read More »
The fossil of the cidaris looked like a self-embroidered Christmas ornament. It was the relic of a slate-pencil sea urchin, or cidaris, a punk-styled marine critter. Alive, it looks like a golf ball with spikes, or a comic-book version of an exploding firecracker.
Vishal Verma, a 48-year-old fossil-hunter and conservationist, was rummaging through an overcrowded closet, sifting through a wobbly pile of electrical-fan cartons. They were now stuffed with fossils of ancient life, some wrapped in plastic, others in old newspapers.
Journal of People 