The recent rally in Jaffna, a Tamil populated capital in the Northern province of Sri Lanka, under the banner “Ezhuka Tamil” (Rise Up Tamils!) has once again posed the question of Tamil self-determination to the fore since the bloody defeat of Tamil Tigers 7 years ago. This demonstration is an indicator of swelling discontent among the Tamil minorities. Despite Sri Lankan State’s victory over the armed separatist Tigers the national question has not been solved in Sri Lanka and the misery of the Tamil population in the North and Eastern provinces have only worsened.

Indian-occupied Kashmir has been in revolt since the killing of Burhani Wani, a commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen group, by Indian troops on 8 July. The killing sparked a massive protest movement across the whole of the Kashmir Valley. The Indian state has responded brutally, imposing a draconian curfew, killing over 80 people and injuring thousands. We publish here a comment on the present situation by Yasir Irshad, a Marxist of the IMT in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

"As in the entire third world, women, especially poor women workers of Pakistan, are suffering. Sometimes I feel that they need a socialist revolution more than anyone. It is the only way to freedom! "(Anam Patafi)

On Friday the 2nd of September 2016 the biggest single strike action in world history took place in India. As many as between 150 and 180 million workers took part in the All India Strike around a 12 point charter of demands put forward by the Central Trade Unions. These included a raise to the minimum wage and pension for all workers, an end to privatization of state owned enterprises and contractorisation of the workforce, a halt to price hikes, the enforcement of labour rights and the scrapping of pro-employer labour law amendments.

Mother Teresa (1910-1997) has been beatified by Pope Francis I, after a series of miracles (where the role of modern medicine was conveniently swept under the rug) were fished out from her lifelong record running clinics for the poor in India. These years of crisis and revolution have been a lean period for the Catholic Church, which is forced to churn out saints to maintain its appeal.

In the context of the sanctification of Mother Teresa we republish this article written about the process in 2003.

The Progressive Youth Alliance (PYA) organized a three-day Marxist School on 5, 6, and 7 August, 2016, in Rawalakot, Kashmir. 104 youth and workers from all over Pakistan came to participate, reaching Rawalakot on 4 August.

Those who rule through deceit, hypocrisy and violence always look over their shoulder for the creeping spectre of truth. They do so more restlessly as they begin to feel the march of history catching up to them and the antiquated system they rest their privileges on. And such is the epoch that we are entering today as capitalism has dug itself into the deepest crisis in its history. The crisis is so deep that it is no longer in the realm of absurdity for the ruling class to think that the only way out is to keep digging until they come out of the other side.

The politics of the ruling class time and time again affirms the famous saying of Marx: “First as tragedy, then as farce.” Here, the ex-Stalinist, now state-capitalist government of Vietnam has asserted its place in both the old tragedy and the new farce with respect to American imperialism.

More and more sections of the working class are coming out to protest for their demands as the economic crisis deepens in Pakistan. Last week saw huge protests of school teachers in Lahore against the privatization of schools. This week more protestors gathered in Lahore from various sections of society despite scorching heat and high temperatures of around forty-eight degrees celsius.

Privatization is top of the government’s agenda in Pakistan. All public sector institutions are being privatized rapidly, leading to unemployment of millions of workers. As a result, millions of families in Pakistan are being deprived of their small incomes and pushed further into poverty and misery. Along with that, the already shabby and dilapidated social infrastructure is being handed over to the vultures of private capital, who are tearing it apart, leaving the whole fabric of society in tatters.

On 27 April, the Baloch Students Organization (Pajjar) organized an event commemorating the 38th anniversary of the Saur Revolution of Afghanistan. The event was held in Baluchistan University. Besides students from the Baloch Students Organization, there were also students from the Pashtun Students Federation, the Baloch Action Committee along with progressive teachers, writers and intellectuals. All participants congratulated the BSO for organizing such an event.

The special 2016 May Day edition of Worker Nama, the paper of the IMT in Pakistan, is available now.

On April 7th police brutally attacked protesting young doctors in Quetta, in which more than fifteen young doctors were severely injured and twenty arrested. Some of the injured doctors are in a serious condition and could lose their eyesight or become permanently paralyzed as a result of this attack.

On the evening of Sunday, 28 March, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a children’s park in Lahore. At least 72 deaths have so far been confirmed and more than 250 are reported injured. This is yet another in the series of terrorist attacks continuing in this “land of the pure” in recent years.