As the JVP/NPP government steps up its repression of school development officers, the teachers' and principals' trade unions are either openly endorsing police actions or turning a blind eye.
The circumstances facing Sri Lankan students cannot be reduced to the personal indifference of university administrations but are the direct result of spending cuts by successive Colombo governments.
We warn students and workers that the FSP and IUSF are preparing another political disaster, just as they did during the April–July 2022 mass uprising against former President Rajapakse and his government.
The public health care system, which is already suffering from shortages of essential personnel, equipment and drugs, cannot cope with a resurgence of the COVID pandemic.
Students should turn to the working class and wage a fight for its political independence from all parties and agencies of the bourgeoisie, including the trade unions and pseudo-left organisations such as the FSP.
Workers in South Asia and the Asia-Pacific region are also being dragged into the maelstrom of imperialist war, which threatens the entire world with nuclear annihilation.
Most affected are working people and the poor, in urban as well as rural areas, who have already been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and hikes in the prices of essentials.
In defiance of teachers’ determination to fight, the unions are engaged in various manoeuvres with the government in a bid to end the strike.
During his five-decade musical career, Balasubrahmanyam sought to unite musicians and artists across the Indian sub-continent.
“The lives of workers have been thrown to the wolves in order to protect the profits of the big capitalists,” one worker told the WSWS.
In opposition to racist provocations whipped up by Sri Lanka’s ruling elite, teachers from the north and east of the island participated in the Colombo protest.
The past five decades have confirmed the far-sightedness of the RCL/SEP’s political analysis and exposure of the petty-bourgeois radicalism of the JVP.
The tax act is part of a series of social assaults by the government on the directives of the International Monetary Fund.
On the orders of the government, police severely beat and baton-charged demonstrators inside the health ministry building.
Four students have been arrested and police are hunting for another 21 students, as the Rajapakse government tries to suppress resistance to its assault on free education.
The Sri Lankan government has deployed police, including riot squads, to break the strike by contract workers demanding permanency and better wages.
What was unique about Ravi Shankar was the breadth of his interests, willingness to experiment and passion for making classical Indian music available to the world.
Even as the government is threatening striking university teachers, their trade union FUTA is preparing to betray the struggle.
The Socialist Equality Party is campaigning for a public meeting in Yatiyanthota, where about 1,000 workers were retrenched last year at the Ranmalu Fashions garment factory.
The union leaders explicitly rejected any political struggle against the government, paving the way for their complete capitulation on the wage demands.
