Mainstream Weekly

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• State Elections and Challenge for Democracy

  20 March 2016

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  Until recently, the BJP was eyeing Assam as the only winnable State among the five States that are going to the polls this summer. But the situation has changed in the last few weeks. Its exercise at striking an alliance with the Asom Gana Parishad has resulted in a vertical split in the regional party. The break-away faction, which calls itself the AGP (Anchalik), has announced that the new party will contest 45 of the 126 Assembly seats.
  The grass-root level workers (…)

• ‘Art of Living’ or ‘Art of Ecocide’?

  20 March 2016

  by M.C. Pindwal
  The world cultural event on the Yamuna river-bed took place from March 11 to 13, 2016. This happened at the cost of the poor living and surviving on the riverbed; it is they who have been badly affected by this so-called rich and mega cultural event, their jhuggies have been destroyed alongwith their crops in totality and they have been permanently displaced from their own land as the entire riverbed has been flattened and its fertility lost.
  These farmers and labourers (…)

• Lal, Neel and Kanhaiya

  20 March 2016

  by Nagender Rao
  Prime Minister Modi’s administration brought pseudo-nationalism as its core agenda after failing to keep its election promises. The current chief of the RSS established its command and control office in the HRD Ministry to supervise the educational institutions in the country. The Hindutva elements are firing shots against the students of Dalits, OBCs, and minorities under the cover of nationalism. In Kanhaiya’s arrest, these forces made many mistakes and exposed themselves (…)

• Sliding Popularity of Right-wing Politics

  20 March 2016, by Sandeep Pandey

  Hardly two months back nobody would have thought that PM Narendra Modi’s authority would be questioned by ordinary university students on campuses. The campaign which brought Modi to power in Delhi was so high profile that in the initial period of his prime ministership an atmosphere was created in which, what to talk of the common people, even his own party members, elected represen-tatives and Ministers couldn’t question him. He was like a headmaster who believed only in one-way (…)

• Undermining Democracy: Stifling Academic Institutions

  20 March 2016

  by Ram Puniyani
  Following the death of Rohith Vemula in the Hyderabad Central University (HCU), one of the most prestigious universities of the country, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), has been targeted by the ruling Modi Sarkar. The frightening things which happened in the HCU were just the beginning of the attack on the autonomy of universities, on free thinking in a democracy. Rohith was forced to kill himself by the machinations of the ABVP, which had brought pressure through a BJP (…)

• Dynamics of Rural Labour Markets in India: Recent Trends and Policy Concerns

  20 March 2016, by C.H. Hanumantha Rao

  The following is the author’s inaugural address at the National Seminar on ‘Dynamics of Rural Labour Relations/Markets in India: Issues, Dimensions and Processes’, S.R. Sankaran Chair (Rural Labour), National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad, March 10-12, 2016.
  As pointed out in the background note for this seminar by the S.R. Sankaran Chair at the NIRD&PR, the ongoing structural changes in the Indian economy are leading to significant changes in the rural (…)

• Reflections from Eden Gardens

  20 March 2016, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  There is much to learn for ourselves from the stormy experiences of the World Cup cricket that we all have been watching excitedly in the last two weeks, particularly from what happened at Bangalore on March 9 and what followed four days later in Calcutta on March 13. It is not just the question of having gone through a hideous ordeal at Calcutta after the rout that the Indian team had to face at the hands of the young Sri Lankan team, who definitely outclassed (…)

• Why the Historians are under Attack

  20 March 2016

  by Vivek Kumar Srivastava
  There is onslaught from the cultural nationalists on the history books which are being taught in post-independent India. A demand for history rewriting will emerge again with more intensity in the post-JNU incident. The general thinking among several politicians is that most of these historians are inclined towards the communist ideology. They are anti-Hindu and mainly belong to JNU. Although these historians have emerged as a distinct school of history, and can (…)

• Statement of Indian Workers’ Association, Great Britain on Current Situation in India

  20 March 2016

  DOCUMENT
  • Release JNU students Omar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya immediately!!
  • Release Delhi University Professors S.A.R. Geelani and G.N. Saibaba immediately!!
  • Abolish Capital Punishment! Abolish the colonial ‘Sedition Act’!
  • Justice for Rohith Vemula and enactment of the Rohith Act!!
  • Complete withdrawal of Army from Kashmir, North-Eastern States and Chhattisgarh!!
  • Justice for Soni Sori! Stop assaults on journalists, activists and NGOs in Chhattisgarh!
  Indian (…)

• How Aadhaar Neglects Personal Privacy and National Security

  20 March 2016, by Sudhir Vombatkere

  The Aadhaar Bill, 2016
  The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016 (“Aadhaar Bill”, for short) was passed in the Lok Sabha on March 11, 2016, as a money bill, a strategem clearly meant to prevent delay in the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP does not command a majority.
  Leaving aside the questionable strategem, the Aadhaar Bill leaves much to be desired, especially considering its troubled “history” ever since the beginning of the Aadhaar (…)