Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• 1857: The idea of nationality in the ’Flag Salute Song’ | Prem Singh

  11 May 2024, by Prem Singh

  On the occasion of the 167th anniversary of the Rebellion of 1857
  British rulers, historians, scholars, writers, and folklorists have referred to the Rebellion of 1857 that started from Meerut on 10 May 1857 by different names. This diversity of nomenclature reflects people’s different attitudes towards the Rebellion. In the War of the nomenclature, the Rebellion has been described with derogatory terms such as ’Ghadar’ by the Britishers on the one hand and ’India’s First War of (…)

• Lenin, and crisis in natural sciences and philosophy today | Anil Rajimwale

  11 May 2024, by Anil Rajimwale

  On the occasion of Lenin’s 154th birth anniversary Lenin, and crisis in natural sciences and philosophy today
  Anil Rajimwale
  The discoveries in the natural sciences at the end of 19th and beginning of 20th centuries led Lenin to write one of the most celebrated works in sciences and philosophy: Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. The immediate instigation for the work was the ‘split’ in the atom and the consequent intense debates among the scientists and the philosophers, as new particles (…)

• How an industry milks mothers’ fears for profit | Irma Hidayana

  11 May 2024

  May 8, 2024
  Baby formula manufacturers have a history of aggressive marketing and exploiting women’s anxieties to wean them off breastfeeding.
  There is a breastfeeding crisis unfolding in Indonesia that results in the deaths of thousands of toddlers and mothers each year.
  Fewer mums are breastfeeding according to World Health Organization recommendations and this steep decline, combined with a surge in the use of commercially manufactured milk formula, is being blamed.
  Data from the (…)

• Climate action / Poll Irregularities / Homeopathy | Humra Quraishi

  11 May 2024, by Humra Quraishi

  Fires spreading out across the hills of Uttarakhand yet there’s little of the expected hue and cry! Not even by those particular politicians who otherwise miss no opportunity talking of environment, having video films shot in and around tiger reserves… Today as fires rage across the hills of Uttarakhand, one can well imagine the plight of the tigers and rest of the animals (human beings included!), surviving in and around the Corbett Park belt and far beyond. Not to be overlooked this vital (…)

• Sri Lanka: Tamil party vows to work with Sinhalese, Muslims | M R Narayan Swamy

  11 May 2024, by M R Narayan Swamy

  A Sri Lankan Tamil party that has paid a heavy price for consistently opposing Tamil Tiger politics has pledged to work with all communities in the island nation while resisting racists and supremacists from all sections of society.
  The Social Democratic Party of Tamils (SDPT), the successor to the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (ERPLF), has called for a full and proper implementation of the India-backed 13th amendment to the constitution that devolves powers to all (…)

• Our shared Bangladesh

  11 May 2024

  08 Feb 2024
  Dear Rehman,
  I am hugely moved by your letter about our shared Bangladesh. It also made me think about our student days, when we had such dreams about a future Bengal and hoped that our anticipations and highest expectations would someday come true.
  You were living mostly in Kolkata in those days, and I was, in contrast, mostly in Dhaka, on the other side of the east-west divide.
  The familiar trains that left Dhaka railway station, which my freedom fighter cousins once (…)

• Students Protest is Soul of Democracy — In Defence of Students Protest in Columbia University | Vijay Kumar

  11 May 2024, by Vijay Kumar

  I have been watching the protest of students at Columbia University, and its spread over other University campuses in US and even in other countries against the Israel attack on Gaza civilians and humongous violation of human rights with sad emotion and unrelieved anguish. As recently as in the last week of March, I was invited to participate in a symposium on the American-Indian Constitution, organized by the Law School of Columbia University. I enjoyed the warm hospitality of faculty and (…)

• The New Assimilation: Reflections on the campus protests in the US | Josh

  11 May 2024

  May 07, 2024
  I was proud to organize with Standing Together at UCLA last Wednesday morning (this was the morning after the heinous assault by counter-protestors, but before the encampment was shut down by the police). We held signs like “ceasefire now,” “hostage deal now,” “humanitarian aid now,” and “war has no winners.” But it was also heartbreaking to speak with current students who told me about broken friendships and a culture of hostility on campus. I was struck by a conversation I (…)

• A Vision of Anarchist Love - Excerpts | Takamure Itsue

  11 May 2024

  Editor’s Note: Takamure ltsue (1894–1964) was a prominent anarchist feminist in Japan during the interwar years. She advocated the elimination of political and social authoritarianism which was controlled by the male-centred bureaucracy. She urged a shift towards a society of agrarian self-government which emphasized harmony with nature, freedom from bureaucratic oppression, and women and men sharing in the production of the essentials of life. Through several debates in the late 1920s, (…)

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  Review of ‘The Right Wing Mirror of Critical Theory by Larry Alan Busk | Matt McManus

  11 May 2024

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
  __0__
  The Right Wing Mirror of Critical Theory:
  Studies of Schmitt, Oakeshott, Strauss and Rand
  by Larry Alan Busk Rowman and Littlefield 2023. 276 pp. hb ISBN 9781666929638
  __0__
  Reviewed by Matt McManus
  For many decades now, anti-foundationalism has been a very popular position on the academic left. Influenced by an array of post-structuralist and post-modern thinkers such as Foucault, Derrida and Gayatri Spivak, many have argued (…)