India

The Central Trade Unions (CTUs), comprising 16 unions, called for protests all over India on 3 July, which took place throughout the country. Nearly 100,000 demonstrations occurred in all the states of India including Puducherry, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Odisha and Maharashtra. In these demonstrations, protestors agitated outside their union offices, in plants, and on streets and roads. This strike was accompanied by a coal workers’ strike against privatisation, lasting three days from 2-4 July.

Police brutality and intimidation, particularly against Muslims and lower castes, has been rampant in India for decades. Under prime minister Modi’s COVID-19 lockdown, it is getting even worse. Several cases have been making headlines in recent months. In the context of the global movement against racism and police brutality, ignited after the murder of black American George Floyd, Marxists vigorously raise the demand to end police brutality but explain that it is impossible without a fight against the capitalist system itself.

The COVID-19 crisis is hitting India hard. Despite only spending 1.2 percent of GDP on healthcare, Modi is assuring his fellow countrymen that they do not need to worry; that India is equipped with the required infrastructure to cope with the pandemic. This is a blatant lie. The Indian healthcare system was devastated even before COVID-19, and it is certainly no better under the current crisis. With the coronavirus hitting all major towns and villages, the rottenness of the Indian healthcare system is laid bare. Here, we will analyse the situation facing the health system in India, the state’s inability to address the pandemic, the role of the private sector, the limits of Indian

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India now has the world's fourth-highest infection rate, with confirmed infections of 425,282 and an overall death toll of 13,699 and climbing. Without providing healthcare or aid for millions, Modi has washed his hands of the crisis, and turned his attention to saving Indian capitalism at the expense of workers and youth in his “Unlock 1.0 India” scheme. 10 major trade unions have called a new general strike on 3 July against attempts by Modi’s government to impose draconian working conditions on the working class.

Years of cuts and austerity in the education sector have hit poor and middle-class families in India, depriving their children of basic education. The COVID-19 situation has only worsened the situation. The fraud of online education, combined with fee increases, budget cuts and job losses have undermined India’s already crumbling education system, with only wealthy families still able to educate their children.

The COVID-19 outbreak that started in Wuhan, China has now affected all the nations of the world. The developed countries, like the USA, Spain, UK and Italy have been hit severely by the spread of the virus. China has been able to control the virus to an extent after three months of lockdown in Wuhan. In India, the first COVID-19 case was detected in January in the Southern state of Kerala.

Indian workers face illegal pay cuts and layoffs at the hands of their unscrupulous bosses, working hand-in-hand with a yellow union. Meanwhile, the regional and central governments are using the COVID-19 crisis as cover to sneak in attacks on the working-class. Defend wages and workers’ rights!

The 73 years that have passed since the transfer of power from British India to the native ruling classes of the Indian subcontinent has not alleviated the dire poverty, misery and exploitation of the vast masses of populace, and in particular the sanitation workers.

Millions of ordinary people in Indian-occupied Kashmir are facing an unprecedented situation amidst the coronavirus lockdown imposed on the whole of India for 21 days. Kashmir was already under a strict curfew and has faced brutal repression since 5 August 2019, when a draconian law was passed by the Modi government changing the status of Jammu and Kashmir as a separate state, dissolving its state assembly by presidential order and relegating it to a union territory directly controlled by the central government.

The Modi government has unleashed a brutal attack on the student leaders of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi through its goons, allegedly linked to ABVP and RSS. The thugs of the ABVP, student wing of BJP, assembled in large numbers along with security personnel in civilian clothes, and entered the premises of the university on the evening of 5 January. They severely beat and injured many student leaders, including the president of the student’s union, Aishe Ghosh. She has now been admitted to hospital and is in critical condition with a fractured skull.

The protest movement of Jawaharlal Nehru University students against indiscriminate fee hikes and reactionary discipline policies for hostels have entered a new stage. The university administration has astronomically increased the fees by 999 percent, meaning hostel room rent has increased from INR10 ($0.14) to INR600 ($8.35). In addition to this, there are newly implemented service charges of INR1700 ($23.67), and the mess fee has increased from INR5000 ($69.61) to INR12000 ($167.07).