Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Tamils seek Europe’s Help as War Crime Haunts Sri Lanka | M.R. Narayan Swamy

  15 August, by M R Narayan Swamy

  In a country where thousands of Tamils were killed in the war against the Tamil Tigers, the horrific rape and murder of a school student way back in 1986 is still haunting Sri Lanka. Now, it threatens to pit liberal Europe against Colombo. Krishanthi Kumaraswamy was sexually assaulted and done to death by soldiers in Jaffna at a time when Sri Lanka was waging what looked like an unwinnable war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
  When her mother and brother, worried where (…)

• Diagnoses of the Dance | Emanuel Eisenberg (1934)

  15 August

  From New Theatre, Vol. 1 No. 8. July-August, 1934
  In reviewing the Workers’ Dance League’s 1934 competition, Emanuel Eisenberg sees, with exceptions, the new revolutionary dance too much about, and not enough of, what it seeks to represent in the art form. REVOLUTIONARY art is obviously not art which either announces, or depicts soberly in advance, the revolution; the completely automatic recording machine can do that just as well, and bourgeois artists are as slick at the game as any, if (…)

• International Declaration on Gender Apartheid and Its Destructive Consequences 15 August 2026

  15 August

  We, the undersigned international legal and human rights experts, drawn together from many regions of the world by our shared commitment to the human rights of women and girls, issue the following International Declaration on Gender Apartheid and Its Destructive Consequences, Recalling that, in accordance with the United Nations (UN) Charter; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and (…)

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  Unity Statement of RCPI and Radical Socialist, adopted after discussion on 9 and 10 August 2026

  15 August

  Revolutionary Communist Party of India (RCPI) was formed during the India freedom struggle from a split in the then Stalinist and class collaborationist CPI in 1934 initially as Communist League and subsequently changed into RCPI when it became a party. The central leader of the RCPI was Saumyendranath Tagore, an Indian delegate to the 6th Congress of the Communist International, who was to gradually question the Colonial Thesis, the decision to expel Trotsky and the sectarian line during (…)

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  CPI Condoles the Demise of MP Parameswaran | Aug 12, 2026

  15 August

  Communist Party of India
  August 12, 2026
  Press Release
  The National Secretariat of the Communist Party of India issued the following statement today (August 12, 2026):
  The Communist Party of India expresses its deep sorrow at the demise of Comrade M. P. Parameswaran, renowned nuclear scientist, Marxist thinker and one of the foremost proponents of the people’s science movement in India. He passed away at the age of 92, leaving behind a rich legacy of scientific work, social (…)

• PM Bhargava the scientist with a spine — Excerpts from his biography

  15 August

  The Man and The Making of Modern Biology in India by Chandana Chakrabarti SouthSide Books . . . a set of episodes that cut across institutions and disciplines . . . when Prof PM Bhargava (PMB) chose to intervene rather than stay silent.
  Indo-US Vaccine Action Programme
  PMB did not suffer from the usual afflictions that scientists often acquire along the way: the ivory-tower syndrome, cultivated social detachment, policy indifference, fear of taking positions, or a belief that engagement (…)

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  Learning from the past of India’s forests | Dinesh C Sharma

  15 August

  BOOK REVIEW India’s Forests: Revisiting Nature and History Arupjyoti Saikia & Mahesh Rangarajan (Editors) Vintage 343 pages Price 999 Forests have been at the centre of human life since ancient times. They are part of history, archaeology, myths, culture, livelihoods, politics, commerce, and much more. Forests are closely inter-linked with all activities in the modern era – food, fuel, water, energy, development, transportation, human health, recreation and so on. Their extent, quality (…)

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  God’s shadow over Mizoram peace | M.R. Narayan Swamy

  15 August, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
  From Guerrilla Fighter to Chief Minister: A Memoir by Zoramthanga
  Penguin/Eight; Pages: xvi + 443; Price: Rs 599 In an age when politicians take credit for everything they do even while spending the tax payers’ money, it is heartening to see a guerrilla-turned-political leader give full marks to God for turning Mizoram from one of the most disturbed regions into India’s most peaceful state.
  Zoramthanga, a pioneer of the once feared Mizo National Front (MNF) who was later (…)

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  Arun Shourie Tears Apart ‘Veer’ Savarkar and his Myths | M.R. Narayan Swamy

  15 August

  BOOK REVIEW The New Icon: Savarkar and the Facts by Arun Shourie
  Penguin/Viking Pages: xviii + 543; Price: Rs 999 Vinayak Damodar Savarkar bragged, exaggerated and even lied. When the Congress battled the British, he did not mind collaborating with the colonial masters. He was adept in spewing hate. Scholar and veteran journalist Arun Shourie says one has to in fact search hard for revolutionary acts that can be traced back to Savarkar. It is such a man who got the sobriquet ‘Veer’ (Brave) (…)

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  The Plumber Farooq’s bicycle at Mrs Mangaliks’ garden in Lucknow (July 10, 2026) | Photo by Pooja Thakur

  15 August