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Often referred to by her initials B.B., Brigitte Bardot (91) one of the best-known symbols of sexual revolution, is no more. Apart from being an actress, singer and model, she was a well-known animal rights activist.

Having dodged bullets and ducked bombs for a considerable part of his working life, trailblazing war journalist Peter Arnett died in his bed. He was 91. Arnett managed to stay ahead of death in the different theatres of war. In the process, he brought eye witnesses to the world from the paddy fields of Vietnam to the deserts of Iraq, Arnett leaves behind a legacy for aspiring journalists and historians for generations to come.

LONDON: Charles Dickens’s Christmas Carol was published on December 19 1843. Eleven days later the Chartist Northern Star had this response, which was headed “a Christmas Carol”: “According to annual and praise-worthy custom the unfortunate inmates both of the workhouse and prison throughout the metropolis, will, upon Christmas-day be regaled with the usual good fare of the season. The proportions of the allowances will vary slightly in different institutions, but in all & good dinner will be provided.”

NEW YORK: Rob Reiner 78, and his wife Michele Singer Reiner 68, died in a tragic homicide at their doorstep in Brentwood in Hollywood home in Los Angeles, after sustaining multiple stab wounds from an unknown assailant. Investigations are on to apprehend the culprit. Reiner was mourned by politicians and Hollywood celebrities.

It is a well-known fact that contemporary “mainstream” economics, the only kind which is taught to students over much of the world, does not capture the reality of capitalism. What is less recognized is that this “mainstream” economics, not just in its existing incarnations, but no matter what new incarnations it assumes, is incapable of capturing the reality of capitalism. Let us see why.

NEW YORK: Leila Majaj Kirkconnell’s Under the Same Sky is more than a novel; it is a monumental work of witness and a significant literary achievement. It accomplishes what countless reports and statistics fail to do: It translates a vast, complex geopolitical tragedy into a deeply personal, sensory, and unforgettable human experience.

Friedrich Engels was the one without whom Marxism could not have been complete. Born on November 28, 1820in Barmen, in the Rhine province of the Kingdom of Prussia, Engels was inseparable from Marx. His father was a manufacturer. He was forced to leave his studies and join a commercial house in Barmen and yet he became one among the finest scholars and teachers of the modern proletariat. Lenin had written in his short biographical note on Engels, “From the time…the two friends came together, they devoted their life’s work to a common cause. And to understand what Engels had done for the proletariat one must have a clear idea of the significance of Marx’s teaching and work for the development of the contemporary working class movement.” In fact Marx and Engels were the pioneers of the working class movement, which they explained as a class struggle to liberate the proletariat from the evils that keep the exploitation alive in the modern society.

In a world where stardom flickers and fades with every Friday release, one man continues to shine with undimmed brilliance. Shah Rukh Khan—known to millions as SRK, Bollywood’s “King Khan,” and India’s most charismatic export—turned 60 on November 2, and the celebrations were every bit as grand as the legacy he has built over three glittering decades.

As November 7, the day of the Russian Revolution’s victory in 1917 nears, a need has emerged to redefine the basic concepts that guide us to understand the changes that long span of years and also centuries have brought in. A new world has been unfolding with the beginning of scientific technological transition, a world where human labour is losing its classical definition, given by Karl Marx. The commodity is losing its labour content. Value creation is losing its prime importance. There is lesser value creation which is based on labour spent on creating something from which is called raw material and the instruments of labour. The instruments of labour are usually evolved during industrial revolution. Also there is visible sign of decline in the share of labour in the production process itself. Even production process is in a transitory phase. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation are ruling the roost. It is not the same as industrial revolution was. A world dominated by computers and electronics is all around us.

Anand Teltumbde’s ‘The Cell and The Soul’ is not just a prison memoir., it is a mirror to the Indian state, society and criminal justice system.