THE pandemic and its consequences manifested in different parts of the world and more importantly its differential impact on classes of people and segments of population reveals deeper chasms and structural divides that capitalism reproduces in its process of accumulation.In the twentieth century since ‘Spanish Flu’ in 1918 we faced two more pandemics namely, the Asian Flu in 1957 and Hong Kong Flu in 1968.

OMICRON, a new SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern, has rapidly overtaken all other variants in the new waves of Covid-19 cases that are emerging in South Africa, the UK, the European Union and the US. More worrying is that Omicron is able to infect those who have received two vaccine doses or already had Covid earlier. This is supported by laboratory evidence though they are still very preliminary results. The good news, if it can be called good news, is that most of those who have been vaccinated do not seem to progress to a critical stage.

FOUR emblematic coups have been now substantially reversed: Chile (1973), Peru (1992), Honduras (2009), and Bolivia (2019). Each of these coups were driven by political forces of the hard right backed by the military and by the United States government. Left-leaning governments will all be in power after March 2022, when Gabriel Boric of the Apreubo Dignidad (Approve Dignity) alliance will be sworn in as president of Chile. In January 2022, Xiomara Castro will be the president of Honduras, and in Bolivia and Peru, President Luis Arce and President Pedro Castillo are already in office.

THE farcical election to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation has once again exposed the kind of ‘democracy’ being practised in West Bengal. On the day of voting on December 19, TMC gangs captured hundreds of booths and much of the voting process was hijacked. Hoodlums were mobilised from outside the city and entire localities were prevented from reaching to polling booths.The results exposed wide-open this bulldozing of democratic rights of the people. In 34 wards, TMC candidates got more than 80 per cent votes. In another 44 wards, TMC got 70 to 80 per cent votes.

THE farmers must launch a united and determined fight against the government’s farm policies which are against farmers. The recent victory of the farmers in Delhi should serve as an inspiration to all the fighting people, said AIKS joint secretary, Vijoo Krishnan on December 18, at Anantapuramu. He was addressing the participants of the Rythu Coolie Rakshana Padayatra, which culminated in a dharna staged outside the district collector’s office.