Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• 

  A Dalit Activist

  8 February 2025, by Arup Kumar Sen

  Indian communist parties have often failed in weaving Indian identities into the language of left politics; Dalit or lower caste identities, gender-based identities, tribal identities are prominent among those. India

• 2025 Delhi Assembly Election Results: A preliminary assessment | P. S. Jayaramu

  8 February 2025, by P S Jayaramu

  February 8, 2025
  The most prestigious and widely awaited Delhi Assembly election results are out. Though there were three national Parties which were in the fray, the results have shown beyond any shadow of a doubt that the contest was bipolar between the incumbent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) with the grand old Party the Indian National Congress (INC) being on the margins, though some of the Party leaders stated that they are in the race for power, at least as

• Budget 2025-26: Pursuing Growth by raising urban demand & Exports, ignores Employment | Sher Singh Sangwan

  8 February 2025

  The budget is broadly growth-oriented like the earlier ones of the BJP-led government. This time the path of pushing investment is by raising the urban demand and increasing exports.The urban demand was showing signs of slackness over the previous two years or so due to inflation and jobs lost after COVID-19. Assessing the situation, the Finanace Minister has aptly raised the income tax exemption limit from Rs.7 lakh to Rs12 lakh for the middle class and even reduced slab rates up to income (…)

• World Bank agenda of repealed farm laws return with ’National Policy Framework on Agriculture Marketing’ (NPFAM) | Rajan Kshirsagar

  8 February 2025, by Rajan Kshirsagar

  The Union Government has brought forward the

• The Union Budget 2025-26 : An Analysis | P. S. Jayaramu

  8 February 2025, by P S Jayaramu

  February4, 2025
  Finance Minister Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget for the year 2025-26 a few days ago. Not being an economist, my focus is largely on the political aspects which surrounded budget making.
  At the very outset, I like to submit that the presentation of the budget should not have been on 1st February , but, on or after 3rd February, as it was not proper to do so when campaigning for the Delhi Assembly elections were very much on. Well, some might say that (…)

• The Diminishing of a Hindutva Icon | M.R. Narayan Swamy

  8 February 2025, by M R Narayan Swamy

• Handloom Weavers

  8 February 2025, by Karli Srinivasulu

  Handloom weaving is a major employer after agriculture in India. It is spatially integrated with the diverse regional political economies and sociologically heterogeneous as caste- communities numerous and as diverse as backward castes, minorities like the Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis are engaged in handloom production for their livelihood.
  The handloom weaving has historically been highly a decentralised sector spread over across the length and bread of the country and been known for (…)

• Why Resolving Manipur Has Become Difficult? |

  8 February 2025, by Ajay K. Mehra

  Manipur, one of the seven states in India

• Indian Politics: Towards communal consensus? | Prem Singh

  8 February 2025, by Prem Singh

  While outrightly opposing the hard-line Hindutva of the RSS/BJP, scholars of the secular camp refer to the soft Hindutva of secular parties, as if the use of soft Hindutva to grab political power is a constitutional secular practice. They, without hesitation, place their bets on the soft Hindutva political parties/leaders who, in their view, can prevent the hard-line Hindutva RSS/BJP from coming into power in the elections. It seems not to matter even if that party/leader is a part of the (…)

• Justice Delayed is Justice Denied | Chaitanya Pandey, Shashank Singh and Sandeep Pandey

  8 February 2025, by Sandeep Pandey

  In 2017 the Electoral Bond Scheme was introduced. In the name of making funding of political parties transparent, the information of purchaser of electoral bond and the political party it was donated to was made opaque even to the Election Commission of India. ECI objected to the possible influencing of policy making by unchecked foreign funding. But it took Supreme Court eight years to strike down the EBS, holding it unconstitutional. Even then it did not seize the illegally accumulated (…)