 Hello and welcome to the Daily Roundup here on NewsClick.in. I'm Siddhantaani and here's a look at our top stories this May Day. This Labor Day, a former worker who's already been dismissed from his job with the BSF, his plight has been brought out once again when the Election Commission has rejected his nomination as a candidate for the Samajwadi Party from Varanasi where he would stand against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The big question that comes up today is why this nomination has been rejected. Is the Prime Minister afraid of what this former soldier brings to the table? According to Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan, there is no grounds for the rejection of this nomination simply because the NOC was not provided on time. In the past, there have been precedents for people being rejected or restricted from campaigning. But that doesn't mean that a person cannot stand under the People's Representation Act. We're sticking with May Day stories today because that's our central theme and NewsClick's journalists are out in the field to capture and convey the stories of working-class India. Aditi Sharma is at the May Day bookstore in New Delhi and Surangya Kaur is at a march. They bring us these reports. Today on the 1st of May, we're here at May Day bookstore and studio subcarve where people have gathered in large numbers to buy books at their actual reasonable rates and to become a part of songs and poems of resistance but more importantly in solidarity with the workers of India. Today is also known as the International Working Day, May Day or the 8-hour year term that was coined back in 1886 in Chicago, the USFA. We have with us Sudhanva Deshpande who is the managing editor of Left Road Books and manages a fair year at May Day bookstore. So Sudhanva, why do we do this every year and what is the importance? Well, the bookstore itself is called May Day and the reason why it's called May Day is because it's a left-wing bookstore and we stand in solidarity with workers all over the world. By workers, we don't only mean industrial workers, we also mean all kinds of workers because they are urban, rural, farmers and so on. So we feel that in today's situation, where there is so much pressure on the left-wing, the right-wing is rising with such ferocity, it's really important that we show a union with the workers today. Because of these workers, we will start getting a human life. Today we are reporting from Chandni Chowk, from the streets of New Delhi. Hundreds of workers have gathered to celebrate the occasion of May Day. They come from all across the city and belong to different unions. They're marching together in solidarity with each other to further the struggle of workers' rights and liberation. With the exception of a handful of nations, the entire world celebrates labour on May the 1st. Our international desk has put together this report of how workers around the world are coming together and reiterating their issues. Every year on May 1st, communist parties, trade unions and all sections of the working class across the world come together to celebrate International Workers' Day. May Day honors the struggles of generations of workers and pays homage to comrades who sacrificed their lives for a better world. The story of May Day begins in the 18th and 19th centuries. At the peak of the Industrial Revolution, factories were booming and capitalists were flourishing. But for the millions of workers who produced all this wealth, it seemed the choice was between stark poverty or death. Across the world, workers refused to accept this choice. Throughout the 19th century, their movements grew in strength. In 1848, Karl Marx gave the iconic call. The Pluritarians have nothing to lose but their change. They have a world to win, workers of all countries unite. In the following decades, workers' organizations became a powerful force worldwide. The slogan was 8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, 8 hours for what we will. The struggle was to begin on May 1, 1886, in Chicago. On that day, 80,000 protesters gathered at Michigan Avenue. Protests were organized on May 2 as well. But on May 3, the police attacked and killed picketing workers at the McCormick Reaper Plant at West and Blue Island Avenues. On May 4, a bomb exploded at a protest gathering to condemn police brutality. Using this pretext, the police opened fire again, killing four workers. In 1886, August Spice, Adolf Fischer, George Engel and Albert Parsons were hanged on charges of involvement in the bomb explosion. Their trial was marked with irregularities. The cause of the 8-hour work day, however, continued to inspire workers. The first of our major international stories for the day comes from the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne in Switzerland, an appeal of two-time Olympic gold medallist, Castor Semenya, has been rejected. She was fighting against the IWF's difference of sexual development rule. The rule essentially says that women athletes have to have a cap on their testosterone levels if they wish to compete in elite competitions such as the Olympic Games and the World Championships. After this ruling, Semenya has, by the way, been fighting this case for more than 10 years and almost single-handedly. After this ruling, it means basically that if she wishes to continue to compete, she will have to take drugs to reduce her naturally occurring testosterone levels. Now, this is a story that will have tremendous impact on women athletes irrespective of what discipline and what sport they compete in. So we'll keep an eye on that story as it develops and our sports desk will have more on that in the coming days and weeks. But for now, we move to our top international story, which comes from Venezuela, where President Nicolás Maduro's government is digging in, the military seems split, and the opposition is ramping up pressure. News click, Surangiakor and Prabir Purkayasta have more. Well, it's clear that the coup attempt has fizzled out because Leopoldo Lopez, one of the right-wing politicians in Venezuela, was broken out by some people, probably a part of a small section of the military or military intelligence, who seemed to have broken him out of his house arrest, also joined by Guaido in front of the air base that you are talking about. So he has sought refuge first in the Chilean embassy, and now he's been transferred, it appears, to the Spanish embassy. The Chilean officials have confirmed that he has sought basically asylum with his wife and child. So I think the picture is clear that if Lopez has already sought asylum, that he doesn't think that this coup is going to go any further. So I think that has failed, and also the Venezuelan people had responded in two ways. One, of course, the armed forces did not participate in the coup as expected by Guaido, it seems, and only a very small section was there, and they also avoided any bloodbath by not attacking them, letting them go and escorted them out of the scene as it were in front of the air base. So it doesn't appear that they've also gave any, shall we say, cause for so-called humanitarian intervention, which otherwise might have happened, because no country would accept armed people trying to incite a coup against the government in front of the air force air base. But there are parts, the other part of it which also, I think, is clear that the government also called for the Shavistas to assemble. In case there was really any attempt to take over the presidential palace or there was an attack on the presidential palace, and a huge number of Shavistas gathered in front of the presidential palace, yes, and that was also a sign that these are armed people who will defend the Venezuelan Revolution and an outside intervention is not very easy. Developments in the wake of the Sri Lanka-Easter attacks which killed hundreds of people have been taken fast. The latest is a video from ISIS chief Al-Baghdadi claiming responsibility for the attacks and saying it was an act of revenge for the loss of its last base in Syria. Joining us for more on this developing story is Abdul from our international desk. Abdul, thanks for taking the time. What is the significance of this Al-Baghdadi video coming out at a time when, well, today, especially when we thought he had been killed in U.S. airstrikes? Yeah, the significance is this is the first video of Baghdadi in the last five years. We thought, the world thought that he is dead and there were various claims that he has been killed. So this is a confirmation that Baghdadi is not dead. He is alive. That is the first important thing. The second important thing is this is coming at the moment when ISIS has been defeated from all its bases in Syria and Iraq. Once upon a time in 2011-2014 they had a large patch of land claiming to be the caliphate there. So in that sense, because ISIS territorially has reduced to almost non-entity and in that context, this video kind of brings, you can say, the point that ISIS is not dead. There is a possibility of its revival and that's basically the objective, the motive behind this video. So coming to the context of the Sri Lanka attacks why Sri Lanka, firstly, why ISIS is getting involved and if you can maybe expand that to talk a little bit about the ISIS footprint in South Asia? That is a very important question. We'll come to the case of Sri Lanka in a while but before that we should understand the creation of ISIS was primarily rooted in the chaos created by the imperialist forces in West Asia. For 20-25 years the US constant US involvement and sanctions, bombings, war in the region created the possibility of the rising of extremism. It provided a base, a legitimacy to the extremist views of ISIS, the Salafist, the revivalist, you can say fundamentalist movements in Islam. It basically became attractive to a large section of population because of the operations, because of the sufferings people went through in the daily life. Can you sleep for a prolonged period? Yeah, exactly. So that provided a basis that led to the emergence of ISIS. Now, because the ISIS has been physically defeated in the region but the appeal to that ideology still remains because the footprints of imperialism in the region has not gone. And that is one basic, you can say the origin, the history of ISIS origin in the region and significance of that event. The second thing is, why Sri Lanka today? When the region of West Asia has seen the fall of ISIS, ISIS is now looking of a different mode of operation and that is basically to create, franchise the organization all across the globe. It basically, you can say in that way it is an improvement in their strategy that from a reason now they are becoming a global player. But the mode of operation, the nature of their activities have changed. Earlier they were doing it physically as a state, they wanted to create a state. Now today they are operating in different parts of the world in different forms. So that is, Sri Lanka is an attempt to assert ISIS presence in South Asia. And perhaps also make the conversation of their goals rather than localize singular elements and make it about a more global movement as such and retain some relevance in that sense. Exactly, this is a way of retaining its relevance as a global movement. But that global movement is rooted in the local issues as well. If you see Sri Lanka, the people who were found involved as we can only say that because they are all at least lay-involved, we don't know whether they are really the culprits of it. But the state has arrested some people and those people basically has roots in the complaints against the Sri Lankan society and state. The riots which happened last year between the, you can say, the extremist Buddhist elements and against the Muslims in Sri Lanka. Then the New Zealand attack against the Muslims which basically provided some kind of, how to put it, legitimacy to the overall ideology of ISIS. So this Sri Lankan attack is primarily is basically an attempt to infiltrate the uncharted territories through using the local issues. And that is what ISIS is primarily is intending to do through these attacks. Thanks for that insight, Abdul. And you'll be following that developing story. So to get more information on ISIS, on Sri Lanka, on international and national stories, the elections that are going on and all of the work that NewsClick does, do visit our website NewsClick.in. Follow us on Facebook and YouTube and we leave you with these images from May Day celebrations across the country. Thanks for watching.