China’s meteoric rise in the last three decades is spuriously attributed to capitalist restoration. It’s a historical irony that China becoming a super power was based on the advanced social and physical infrastructure that could only be built through a planned economy in a backward country, established by the 1949 revolution. China’s bureaucratic elite sold […]
Politics of dependence
The hype given by the media to Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s ostentatious visit to the Senate along with the glee and appeasement of the vast majority of senators exposes the reality of who calls the shots behind this democratic façade. The general’s remarks when a Senator raised the issue of […]
Prospects of Nepal’s ‘communist’ government
Nepal, a tiny Himalayan state has attained an increased relevance in the last few decades due to the geographical importance, being sandwiched between the two Asian giants, China and India. The final results of last week’s election bequeathed a landslide victory for Nepal’s left alliance of the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) and […]
Trump’s dangerous move — II
Palestinian inhabitants of Jerusalem are essentially stateless and stuck in legal limbo. They are not citizens of Israel, but nor are they citizens of Jordan or the Palestine Authority. Israeli regime treats these Palestinians in East Jerusalem as foreign immigrants who live there as a ‘favour granted to them by the state’ and not by […]
Trump’s dangerous move
Donald Trump’s reckless move to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s historic and eternal capital exposes the deep divisions in the US state and society. The escalating economic crisis and failure of the US capitalism to halt the socioeconomic decline has exacerbated the predicament of the American people. Cracks within the Trump administration have opened up. Secretary […]
PPP: once the challenger, now an appeaser
On November 30th, 1967, the founding convention of a new political party was organised by left wing political activists in Lahore. Most were students having greater ideals and an audacious mindset to go beyond defunct reformist ideas in the progressive movement and overthrow this system of tyranny and oppression. Under Ayub Khan’s military dictatorship, albeit […]
South Asia’s religious belligerency
The rise of religious politics and tendencies with increasingly vicious and belligerent characteristics is wreaking havoc in the South Asian Subcontinent and in many other parts of the world. Indian politician from Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav last Sunday taunted Prime Minister Narendra Modi by saying that “earlier people used to fear the lion but now […]
Masters of morality?
For the last 70 years the elite’s liberal and conservative intelligentsias’ are undecided about the ideology of Pakistan — secular or a theocratic state? Constitutional accords of their political representatives don’t really decipher in a ripped social fabric. India is a glaring example where despite a ‘secular’ constitution one of the world’s most bigoted regimes […]
Contradictions in US-China relations
During his first visit to China last week, Donald Trump lavished praise on Xi: “You are a very special man.” The audience couldn’t quite believe what they were hearing as these Presidents’ were meant to be strategic rivals. It is perhaps Trumps most significant U-turns since his campaign and initial weeks of his presidency. Even […]
Centenary of the Russian revolution
One hundred years ago on the fateful night of 6-7 November, the Bolsheviks took power in Russia, through a revolutionary insurrection. The greatest victory of the toilers in the class struggle since human society was first divided into classes several millennia ago. Leon Trotsky describes Lenin’s entrance in the Congress of the Soviets during those […]