New Socialist Alternative

Year: 2007

  • 25,000 textile workers protest against poor wages

    Textile workers are on the move again. More than 25,000 textile workers defied a ban on protests in emergency-ruled Bangladesh to demand back pay and bonuses in one of the country’s biggest industrial zones. The workers walked off the job in Tejgoan industrial area in the capital Dhaka and held protests in the streets, forcing…

  • Nuclear deal with US provokes crisis

    Industry enriches bosses but endangers life and the environment Nuclear deal with US provokes crisis All essential commodity prices in India have sky-rocketed, while the foreign exchange reserve is at its peak. But that does not alter the hunger and squalor facing millions of Indian poor. There is an unprecedented growth in the macro economy…

  • British rule in Asia: the poisoned legacy

    The British empire dominated South and South East Asia, maintaining its power through the cynical manipulation of ethnic and religious division, alongside brutal repression. It could not, however, hold out against rising workers’ and nationalist movements, particularly after the second world war. As the 60th anniversary of Indian independence approaches, PETER TAAFFE comments on the…

  • Violence erupts in Karachi as political polarisation increases

    Fifty killed and more than 150 injured Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city saw its worst political violence in decades on 12 May. Over 50 people were killed and more than 150 injured in clashes and gunfights between the pro-government Muttahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM – a chauvinist reactionary party which primarily bases itself amongst the Mohajir minority)…

  • Brutal face of India’s boom

    This is an introduction to an Indian edition of the book Marxism in Today’s World Peter Taaffe, General Secretary, Socialist Party The publication of an Indian edition of Marxism in Today’s World is timely. All the questions which are posed in the course of the dialogue between myself and an Italian Marxist are the same…

  • Garment factories – a hell on earth

    One day in February this year, Ammu, a 25-year-old textile worker, was found hanged in the most suspicious circumstances. Her death was declared to be a suicide. This garment worker, at the ‘Triangle Apparels’ factory, Bangalore, was the mother of two children. Her death has orphaned them. ‘Triangle Apparels’ employs 1,500 workers, mostly women. On…

  • Maoist ministers sworn in

    New government, but is it a “new Nepal”? In a twist of history, the Minister of Information and Communication in Nepal’s new government is the former spokesman of the Maoist People’s Army, Krishna Bahadur Mahara. Along with four other Maoists, he was sworn in at a ceremony on Sunday 1 April. The oath, lead by…

  • Peasants massacred in West Bengal

    Killings are ultimately the responsibility of the ‘Communist’ led state government. The Communist Party (Marxist) has had majority support in West Bengal and has run the state for 30 years. Much of its support has come from the landless peasantry who were granted what they thought were permanent land rights under a popular but very…

  • Public sector workers’ strike forces major concessions

    Mass class struggle in impoverished, repressive society Trade Union Rights Campaign Kashmir reporters The Kashmiri public sector workers strike movement, which involved 50,000 workers at its height, backed up by international solidarity, forced the right-wing Muslim Conference government of Attique Khan to sign an agreement making important concessions to this oppressed section of workers. Concessions…

  • India is booming, but for who?

    Majority of children malnourished and majority of population illiterate While there is undeniably an economic boom and growth in India, it only really touches the 3% of the best off. The fact that 52% of the Indian children are malnourished shows the hugely unequal character of the boom. The poorest sections of working class are…