Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• A Wishlist: People

  22 May

  The 2026 elections for the West Bengal assembly was unprecedented in two ways. First, it was the first ever violence-free election in the history of the State, Secondly, the voter turnout, was nearly 93%. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in this eastern State by bagging a massive 207 seats out of 293 seats. The ruling All India Trinamool Congress (AITC), facing anti-incumbency at the end of its third term, secured only 80 seats and will now sit in Opposition. The Indian (…)

• The Secular Ghosts of Park Street | Sreejith Kalandy

  22 May

  A Reflection on Cosmopolitan Memory, Coexistence, and the Layered Soul of a Kolkata Street
  As Bengal changes politically and socially, the other day I went to Flurys on Park Street, ordered its iconic English breakfast, and sat looking out through its glass fa

• Changing Nomenclature of Centrally Sponsored Schemes in India: Implications for Beneficiary Perception and Policy Effectiveness | Jos Chathukulam

  22 May, by Jos Chathukulam

  Abstract
  The evolution of Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) in India reflects continuous efforts by the

• The Invisible Workforce That Keeps India’s Cities Running | Krishnan Agarwal

  22 May

  Every election season, when trains fill with Bengali workers heading home to vote, the cities like Delhi, Gurgaon, Bengaluru, Kochi, Mumbai and Pune they leave behind briefly halt their fast-paced life-style. All across Kerala, the work in gardens, orchards, orchid farms and cocoanut farms also come to a brief halt. The workers here are from rural Bengal, just like those in the big cities. This happens when elections happen in the north-eastern States, Bihar and Odisha too, and States like (…)

• Thesis and Antithesis of Cooperatives in Maharashtra: A Dialectical Perspective | Md Sahidul Islam and Rahul Thombare

  22 May

  Introduction
  The state of Maharashtra continues to witness the persistent agrarian distress and challenges in India. One of the grave agrarian crises is the farmers’ suicides. The state accounts for approximately 38% of all farm-sector suicides, the largest share of farmer suicide, in India. (Mohan, 2025). Historically, the state has witnessed persistent farmer suicides between 2015 and 2024; over 37,000 farmer suicides happened in Maharashtra, which exceeds over 3500 per year. This (…)

• Journey from Emergency to Digital Emergency Architecture, a monstrous legacy of Pranab Mukherjee: India

  22 May, by Gopal Krishna

  In your files village weather is rosy)
  But this data is fake, this claim is bookish
  — Adam Gondvi
  Had Adam Gondvi (1947-2011) been alive, he would say,

• Palestine on BRICS agenda | Jawed Naqvi

  22 May, by Jawed Naqvi

  AT the heart of the war on Iran is the issue of Palestine. That the BRICS foreign ministers

• Unseating Authoritarian Regime: Lessons from Hungary | Amal Mandal

  22 May

  An overwhelming 70% of seats for the two-year-old Tisza party led by Peter Magyar in the Hungarian parliamentary election 2026 is both momentous and instructive. Besides the drubbing of the 16-year-long entrenched authoritarian Orb

• Public Education in Soviet Russia | Anatoly Lunacharsky (1919)

  22 May

  ‘Public Education in Soviet Russia’ by Anatoly Lunacharsky from Communist International. Vol. 1 Nos. 2, 4, & 6. 1919.
  Aiming at the systematization of every and all state functions, the Soviet has fundamentally changed the competence and character of the government organ that under the old regime bore the name of Ministry of Public Education.
  1) This ministry formerly confined its activity chiefly to schools. A whole series of highly important cultural institutions were beyond its (…)

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  Review of Jayaramu’s Decoding Indian Politics | Girija K S

  22 May

  [fond noir][blanc]BOOK REVIEWblanc]fond noir]
  Decoding Indian Politics by P S Jayaramu
  Writers Choice Publications Pvt Ltd., New Delhi.
  ISBN NO 978-93-49389-02-1
  No of pages: 260
  __0__
  This book is a compilation of articles written by Prof. P S Jayaramu, formerly Professor of Political science in Bangalore University. An ardent writer and a scholar of Political science and International relations, Professor Jayaramu has produced many students and has guided scholars, has been (…)