Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The Wider Reality Missing in Most Discourse on Wars | Bharat Dogra

  1 June, by Bharat Dogra

  Increasing concern has been expressed in recent times regarding the several dangerous ongoing wars and civil wars and the possibilities of their escalation and expansion. While any discourse motivated by peace objectives is most welcome, we argue here that a lot of recent discussion may be missing out on a wider and very important reality that has two important aspects. Firstly, human society may be becoming more of a violent society with intolerably high levels of physical and emotional (…)

• The Intellectuals | Anton Pannekoek (1935)

  1 June

  October 12, 1935
  The intellectual middle class, the engineers, scientists, technical employees, etc. are a necessary part of industrial production, quite as indispensable as the workers themselves. Technical progress, in replacing workers by machines, tends to increase their number. Therefore their class interests and their class character must be of increasing importance in the social struggles.
  Their growing numbers reflect the growing importance of science and theory in the production (…)

• 

  Review of Harris’s Critical Theory and the Critique of Alternative Societies: Co-operatives, Mutual Aid and Universal Basic Income | Domonkos Sik

  1 June

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
  __0__
  Critical Theory and the Critique of Alternative Societies: Co-operatives, Mutual Aid and Universal Basic Income
  by Neal Harris
  Manchester University Press
  2026. 184 pp.,
  ISBN 9781526172228
  __0__
  Reviewed by Domonkos Sik
  Neal Harris is taking on a daunting quest: critiquing those emancipatory movements that, by their own definition and according to the mainstream view of Marxist and critical sociology, are supposed to widen the

• 

  Documentary Film: Indigenous Seeds, Forests in Madhya Pradesh | Suma Josson

  1 June
• 

  Music: FR G. D’Alessandro: Overtura a 4 (Fonds Blancheton, Op. 5, No. 209) / "Benedetto Marcello" B. Ensemble

  1 June

  Play
  G. D’Alessandro: Overtura a 4 (Fonds Blancheton, Op. 5, No. 209) / "Benedetto Marcello" B. Ensemble by John Portman https://youtu.be/jwliDkxV1qA?si=ReBBJaCSzRk2Knn2

• Eleven Years, Six Asks: The Policy Ledger Behind Modi’s Austerity Appeal | Varna Sri Raman

  22 May, by Varna Sri Raman

  Seventy-three days into the Iran war, the Prime Minister asked Indians to cut fuel, defer foreign travel, postpone gold, reduce edible oil, revive work-from-home, and buy Indian. Citizens of any country with an import profile like India’s would accept restraint in a crisis. The question is why this crisis arrived so unprepared for, after eleven years of Make in India, Atmanirbhar Bharat, and Aatmanirbharta. Each ask names a vulnerability the policy ledger was supposed to close. The bill is (…)

• Labour Unrest in Noida and Gurgaon: Precarity, Protest and the Crisis of Labour Governance | Chetna Trivedi

  22 May

  Labour Unrest and Workers

• The e-SHRAM Paradox: Visible to the State, Invisible in Welfare | Bhumi Sharma, Faraz Ahmad and A. M. Jose

  22 May, by A. M. Jose

  Abstract: India’s e-SHRAM portal is one of the world’s largest digital registries of unorganised workers. With over 31.48 crore workers registered as of January 2026, it represents an important administrative achievement. Yet registration alone does not guarantee social protection. Drawing on field evidence from informal workers in Gurugram, this article argues that e-SHRAM has made workers visible to the state without necessarily enabling them to claim welfare benefits. The challenge, (…)

• CJI could initiate a probe into fake degree holders occupying high offices | Faraz Ahmad

  22 May, by Faraz Ahmad

  Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant stated recently in an open court, "There are youngsters like cockroaches. They don’t get any employment. Some of them become media, some become social media, some become RTI activists, some of them become other activists."
  When there was an outrage in the world outside, Justice Surya Kant clarified that his courtroom remarks comparing certain individuals to "cockroaches" and "parasites" were strictly aimed at individuals using fake degrees to enter (…)

• Reading Gandhi

  22 May, by Arup Kumar Sen

  Kumkum Sangari