Table of Contents - Mainstream, Feb 17, 2024

In this Issue:

• Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Feb 17, 2024
• Playing Politics On Stage | L K Sharma
• Unpacking the Moral Relativism of a People | Subhash Gatade
• Interim Budget 2024-2025: Focus on Individual Beneficiaries | Sher Singh Sangwan
• Interim Budget 2024: An Estimate of Cherry-Picked Data Determined by Half Truth and Counter-Assertion | Nisha Mishra
• Everyday Violence is more tragic than is commonly realized | Bharat Dogra
• Conjuring an illusion of prosperity | Sunil Ray
• Targeting Muslim Religious Sites: A War Cry | Arup Kumar Sen
• Indian Muslims and Electoral Choices in 2024 | Ram Puniyani
• The Death of Hind | Murzban Jal
• Of prisons and torture | Sukumaran C.V.
• Farmers’ Movement: Bar Association president’s letter denotes the fall of civil society | Prem Singh
• The question of moral injury and theoretical aporia in the framework of Secular governance | Shah and Reshi
• Pakistan: Fraudulent elections ensure the army’s status quo | Claude Rakisits
• Bab-el-Mandeb Strait Tensions: The Global Impact on Maritime Security and the Blue Economy | Santosh Mathew
• South Koreans blame feminism for demographic collapse | Dylan Motin
• 1917 Open Letter to Western European Workers | P Kropotkin

DOCUMENTS:

• AITUC Condemns the Centre’s Brute Force Against Farmers | Feb 13, 2024
• Letter to Prime Minister Modi over failure to meet promises & repression against farmers | SKM, Feb 13, 2024
• Stop Waging War against our Farmers - Statment by PUCL, Feb 15, 2024
• Supreme Court ruling renders the electoral bonds scheme unconstitutional - Statements by CPI(M) & CPI

BOOKS:

• Political Autobiography of a Midnight’s Child | John Dayal
• An X-Ray of Britain’s scheming and India’s follies on China | M.R. Narayan Swamy
• Ruble’s Review of Feminist Transformations and Domestic Violence Activism in Divided Berlin, 1968-2002 by Jane Freeland

IMAGE & SOUND:

• Cartoon: Protecting Electoral Prospects & Suppresing Farmer Protest | Satish Acharya
• Caricature: Tribute to A Ramachandran | Jayaraj Vellur
• CPIML Poster for the Rural Strike and Bandh call on 16 Feb 2024
• Photo: Henri Cartier-Bresson - Ahmedabad, Gujarat (1966)
• Audio: Rescuing Social Democracy with Olle Tournquist
• Music: Johann Sebastian Bach: Concerto for Two Keyboards in C minor, BWV 1062 | Daniil Trifonov & Sergei Babayan

Editor’s Picks:

• MIB orders magazine to take down story detailing civilian abuse by army
• BCS, CJP allege selective profiling of Christians in Mumbai, Thane
• Illusion Of Normality: Unmasking Reality In Jammu and Kashmir
• Review of Kunal Purohit’s ’H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars’
• Looking for Indraprastha
• Electoral bonds: A landmark judgment in the direction of free and fair elections
• Electoral bonds: No solution to illegal political funding [article from Jan 2023]
• Eight of our institutions usurped Says Prof Yunus in press briefing
• Army looms large as Nawaz Sharif eases towards fourth term in Pakistan
• Memories of My Father Faiz Ahmed Faiz and our simple dal chawal meals
• Russian activist and Putin critic Alexei Navalny dies in prison
• The US could stop the horror in Rafah today. Why won’t it?
• Why Do Birds Have Such Skinny Legs?
• Too Much Hegemony: A Novel Theory of the Unintended Consequences of Dominant Narratives

(Cover Artwork Credits: Red and Black by Masanari Murai)