The 18^th “Permanent Revolution” convention of Jammu Kashmir National Students Federation was held in Rawalpindi on 28^th October in which a big number of students from Pakistani Occupied Kashmir and various cities of Pakistan participated.

The national leadership of the PTUDC including Chairman Riaz Hussain Baloch, Vice Chairman Qamar Uz Zaman Khan, General Secretary Nazar Mengal and Information Secretary Paras Jan embarked on a visit across the country for the unity of the working class. Many activities including labour conferences, seminars on workers’s issues, protest rallies, meetings with delegations of workers and others were held in different cities.

The 18^th “Permanent Revolution Convention” of the Jammu Kashmir National Students Federation is being held on 28^th October in Rawalpindi. A rally will be held on Murree Road in Rawalpindi at 2 p.m. against unemployment, price hikes and privatizations. Later an education session for young students will be held at 4 p.m. After that new cabinet of the JKNSF will be elected.

The duplicity, turmoil and empty facade which characterise present-day politics in Pakistan reflect the malaise that afflicts society and the mayhem within the state. But above all it is the wildly unravelling downward spiral of the economy that is devastating the whole system and society. Its ramifications are glaringly evident in the decline of art, culture, literature, social behaviour, human relations and the psychological distress that has made life miserable for the vast majority of the population.

The management of Coca Cola is using anti-labour measures and forces of repression to attack the rights of the workers in its Gujranwala plant. The Employees Workers Union which is representing the workers is under attack because it is fighting for the rights of workers.

Nestle Management in Kabirwala, near Khanewal, have attacked the workers for raising their voice against tyranny. The official of the Police, Judiciary and Local Administration are slavishly following the orders of their capitalist masters.

Unilever Management has received many awards internationally for safety in their factories, especially the management are always touting the idea that safety at their R.Y.Khan plant is the best in the world. This, however, is a big lie like so many others told by capitalists around the world. In 2011 alone there were two major accidents at R.Y.Khan. In one accident three fingers of a worker were cut in a machine.

As if the catastrophic effects of terrorism, flooding, violence, the dengue plague and other innumerable disasters were not enough, the ruling elite and its brash media has hyped up the empty imperialist provocations and vague threats, adding to the mental trauma the masses were already suffering in Pakistan.

The existence of a steel producing giant in a backward country like Pakistan is nothing less than a miracle. The idea of setting up Pakistan Steel was put forward during the era of Ayub Khan (1958-1969) but the US like many other advanced capitalist countries refused to give any kind of assistance, as the creation of any such kind of basic industry in an underdeveloped country was considered a threat to their own exploitative imperialist agendas.

The terrible floods have ravaged Sind yet again this year. Torrential rain poured down on Karachi after a recent spate of unending bloodletting. A peculiar strain of mosquito has wreaked havoc in Lahore. Psychological trauma overwhelms the Punjab, particularly its capital. Baluchistan continues to bleed and the repression of the state is relentless. Pushtoonkhawa find no respite from bombings by the imperialist predators and fundamentalist terror. The misery in Kashmir worsens with every passing day and the dream of freedom fades away further into oblivion.

The political edifice in Pakistan fabricated under the auspices of imperialism, particularly the British, has once again been shaken by the recent outburst of Zulfiqar Mirza, Sindh’s most senior (former) minister.

The mayhem and human slaughter that has been prevalent in Karachi for more than three decades intensifies periodically. Another such wave of this dreadful violence has been unleashed in the recent weeks. However, this gruesome spate of killings and devastation is not the cause but a symptom of the severely diseased social and economic system, the harrowing crisis of which is now nudging society into the throes of barbarism.

The elections for the AJK assembly of Pakistan controlled Kashmir being held recently are perhaps the most unrelated of issues plaguing the Kashmiri youth and the working people on this side of the Line of Control. The ruling elite neither have the resources nor the will to solve any of the burning problems the Kashmiri masses are inflicted with.

The workers at the Nestle plant in Kabirwala are waging a relentless struggle against brutal management which has the support of the local administration, and services of hired goons and yellow press journalists along with huge amounts of money. The workers only have one weapon which is their unity!

On that ill-fated night of July 4^th-5^th 1977 Pakistan suffered a bloody military coup, the scars of which are still felt today. The coup led by general Zia ul Haq brought in the most vicious and brutal regime ever in the country’s history. The country’s first elected Prime Minister on the basis of adult franchise, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was deposed and incarcerated. In April 1979 he was hanged with the complicity of the judiciary subservient to the army.

The struggle of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation workers is continuing amid severe repression on the part of management and the government. On June 22 goons used by KESC management together with a neo-fascist organization in Karachi attacked the rally of KESC workers in Nazimabad with firearms in which three workers were seriously injured.

The imperialist intransigence over Pakistan’s nuclear assets and the doubts cast by American think tanks about its security, along with the perceived dangers of the fundamentalists taking them over has created a furore within leading circles in Pakistan. The general policy of the US on nuclear policy, however, reeks of hypocrisy, deceit and double standards.

After years of suffering anti-trade union measures at the hands of Coca Cola management the workers in Pakistan have had enough and are organising a fightback, as this report we have received from the Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign outlines.

On 2nd June 2011, railway workers of the shed department in Multan and many other cities of Pakistan arranged protests for a rise in salaries, T.A [Technical Allowance] & D.A [Daily Allowance] payments, holiday allowances, shift allowances and scale up in gradation.

The ferocity of irregularly regular terrorist attacks in Pakistan has become a festering wound on the body politic of the country. Malaise and despair stalk the land. Yet for the masses at large the ever-raging futile debate amongst the dominant intelligentsia on this issue has only served to confuse rather than clarify this curse. It is, therefore, crucial to separate the essential from the inessential and grasp the core of the problem.