Asia

An incredible case of repeated gang rape of female students in Indian colleges was revealed last year, eventually leading to the culprits being sentenced to life imprisonment. But this was no ordinary case of rape; it involved an attempt at a cover-up that led right to the top of the national government itself. It was only the courageous action of the female students, a female teacher and then the families of the victims that eventually achieved justice. The case has brought out the terrible suffering that ordinary working people in India have to bear.

Today elections are being held in India. The CPI and CPI(M) leaders have come up with another version of class collaborationist politics, the so-called “Third Front”. It is presented as an alternative to both the BJP and Congress, but in reality it is an alliance with smaller bourgeois formations. It is time for the leaders of the Indian Communist Parties to break with this kind of policy and offer the workers of India a United Front of workers’ organisations.

The BJP has always been known as an extremely reactionary chauvinist party, but in its recent backing of Varun Gandhi it has fallen to even lower depths, a clear sign that it is preparing to foment communal conflict, pitting poor against poor, in order to divert attention away from the real social and economic problems.

At the end of March a young girl in New Delhi, the youngest of four siblings in the family, was desperate for a job, which, in spite of a degree obtained in England, she had not been able to find for several months due to the employment crunch and was thus led to committing suicide in a state of depression.

One of the issues confronting the G20, and one the official communiqué is likely to duck, is the threat of climate change making parts of the globe uninhabitable. Nowhere is the peril more present and manifest than Bangladesh, home to more than 130 million people. The G20 leaders may smile for the cameras as their conflab closes, but the working people of Bangladesh are at the sharp end of capitalism’s failure to deal with threat of climate change.

Bhagat Singh was an outstanding figure in the struggle for Indian independence, and paid dearly for his ideals by being hanged by the British colonialists of the time. Attempts have been made to distort what he really stood for, but what is clear from some of his writings is that he rejected the idea of two-stage revolution and saw the workers and peasants as the only truly revolutionary forces upon which the revolution could be based.

At half past eight this morning (March 30) terrorists used machine guns and grenades to launch a savage attack on a police training academy in Manawan, on the outskirts of Lahore. Our correspondent explains the real material interests that lie behind these attacks, interests that are expressed in divisions within the state at all levels.

A scandalous case of recycling of syringes in Gujarat hospitals and clinics has led to the death of 65 people, with more than 200 still struggling for their lives. The callous attitude of the government is clear for all to see.

The PPP government in Pakistan has just announced a programme of sweeping privatisation, involving 22 publicly owned companies and services, together with other anti-working class policies. The PTUDC met in Multan, raising the need to unite the workers against these attacks.

Faced with mutiny at the Bangladesh Rifles Pilkhana barracks, and its spreading to many other areas, the government of Bangladesh, terrified at the consequences of such a sudden eruption of anger of the troops, initially offered to accept their demands, confirming its own weakness. Now the manhunt for the rebels is on, but the open challenge to their superior officers revealed by the ranks is an indication of how weak the state is and underlines the enormous revolutionary potential within society.

Strikes at two cigarette factories in Indonesia highlight the growing militancy of workers who receive miserable starvation wages. The strikes at PT Cakra Guna Cipta, who are organized by the SPBI and at the PT Pakis Mas cigarette factory are a clear example of this growing mood of anger and determination to win better wages and conditions.

This article by the Action Committee of the Dismissed Workers at Unilever in Pakistan, written by its President Muhammad Azeem and Secretary General Jehanzaib Khan), gives an account of the ongoing protests to get the sacked workers reinstated.