The 18^th “Permanent Revolution Convention” of the Jammu Kashmir National Students Federation is being held on 28^th October in Rawalpindi. A rally will be held on Murree Road in Rawalpindi at 2 p.m. against unemployment, price hikes and privatizations. Later an education session for young students will be held at 4 p.m. After that new cabinet of the JKNSF will be elected.

The duplicity, turmoil and empty facade which characterise present-day politics in Pakistan reflect the malaise that afflicts society and the mayhem within the state. But above all it is the wildly unravelling downward spiral of the economy that is devastating the whole system and society. Its ramifications are glaringly evident in the decline of art, culture, literature, social behaviour, human relations and the psychological distress that has made life miserable for the vast majority of the population.

The management of Coca Cola is using anti-labour measures and forces of repression to attack the rights of the workers in its Gujranwala plant. The Employees Workers Union which is representing the workers is under attack because it is fighting for the rights of workers.

The struggle of the Power Loom workers in Ludhiana, Punjab has escalated with the workers taking the step of starting an indefinite Gherao (encirclement) of the local Labour Offices in order to get the State government to force the employers to cede to their demands. This marks a stepping up of the struggle and shows a firm willingness on the part of the workers to fight until their demands are met.

Nestle Management in Kabirwala, near Khanewal, have attacked the workers for raising their voice against tyranny. The official of the Police, Judiciary and Local Administration are slavishly following the orders of their capitalist masters.

Unilever Management has received many awards internationally for safety in their factories, especially the management are always touting the idea that safety at their R.Y.Khan plant is the best in the world. This, however, is a big lie like so many others told by capitalists around the world. In 2011 alone there were two major accidents at R.Y.Khan. In one accident three fingers of a worker were cut in a machine.

On 3rd October, striking Power Loom workers from various areas of Ludhiana gathered to demonstrate in front of the Labour Department offices for a second time to increase the pressure on local officials to get their demands met. This was the 12th day of the workers’ struggle to get a pay increase to offset the recent rises in inflation and to have labour laws enforced that are part of the Indian constitution. These have yet to be accepted by the employers who are trying their best in order to ignore the plight of the workers.

As if the catastrophic effects of terrorism, flooding, violence, the dengue plague and other innumerable disasters were not enough, the ruling elite and its brash media has hyped up the empty imperialist provocations and vague threats, adding to the mental trauma the masses were already suffering in Pakistan.

The September 30^th anniversary commemorating the “failed” 1965 “G30S coup” has come round once again. It was a dark day that changed the fate of the Indonesian toiling masses. The Good Book says, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20:16). The same fate but in reverse befell the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) that was reduced from being the largest Communist party outside the Soviet Union and China to a handful surviving in the underground and in exile. It is no exaggeration to say that the collapse of the PKI transformed the world political order in Indonesia.

For the second time in Nepal since the election of the Constitutional Assembly in 2008, a Maoist is heading the Nepalese government. This time it is Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, who has become the new, 35th, Prime Minister of Nepal. But what does this mean for the Nepalese revolution?

The existence of a steel producing giant in a backward country like Pakistan is nothing less than a miracle. The idea of setting up Pakistan Steel was put forward during the era of Ayub Khan (1958-1969) but the US like many other advanced capitalist countries refused to give any kind of assistance, as the creation of any such kind of basic industry in an underdeveloped country was considered a threat to their own exploitative imperialist agendas.

The terrible floods have ravaged Sind yet again this year. Torrential rain poured down on Karachi after a recent spate of unending bloodletting. A peculiar strain of mosquito has wreaked havoc in Lahore. Psychological trauma overwhelms the Punjab, particularly its capital. Baluchistan continues to bleed and the repression of the state is relentless. Pushtoonkhawa find no respite from bombings by the imperialist predators and fundamentalist terror. The misery in Kashmir worsens with every passing day and the dream of freedom fades away further into oblivion.

Gathering in Kolkata on Monday 12th September a joint press meeting was held by the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), the All India Trade Union Congress and other trade union bodies, where Kali Ghosh (State General Secretary of CITU) and Ramen Pandey (INTUC State General Secretary) denounced the Anti-Labour policies of the Trinamool Congress lead government of West Bengal.

The crisis that has shaken the world economy since 2008 has pushed bourgeois ideologists to desperately seek a solution. They are looking for alternative ways of running their system, seeking to square the circle and maintain capitalism without its inevitable contradictions. As Asia, and China in particular, is doing so well, there is a burgeoning literature about the Chinese model, just as in the past there was so much made of the “Japanese miracle”. In Part One of this article Luca Lombardi looks at the experience of Taiwan.

The political edifice in Pakistan fabricated under the auspices of imperialism, particularly the British, has once again been shaken by the recent outburst of Zulfiqar Mirza, Sindh’s most senior (former) minister.