Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Loneliness and Capitalism | Bhabani Shankar Nayak

  23 March 2024

  The epidemic of loneliness is spreading rapidly in our hyper-connected world of social media. Studies by the World Health Organization suggest that "20-34% of older people in China, India, the United States, and regions of Europe and Latin America experience loneliness." Similarly, there is a crisis of friendship and meaningful connections among young people. Research by the Campaign to End Loneliness in the United Kingdom has revealed that "49.63% of adults (25.99 million people) are (…)

• Intersections of Caste and Gender: A Critical Analysis of Gendered Violence in ’Bandit Queen’ | Sahil Singh

  23 March 2024

  Keywords: Caste, Gender, Violence, Structural Oppression, Agency, Representation, Appropriation
  Phoolan Devi: A Symbol of Resilience and Resistance
  Phoolan Devi, born into a family of lower caste Mallahs (boatmen) in a rural village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, became an icon throughout her thirty-eight-year existence and a subject of curiosity for the mainstream media both nationally and globally. The media was quick to cast her in the role of the "Bandit Queen," who (…)

• Unfolding of "New conception" of Women’s empowerment | Sunil Ray

  23 March 2024, by Sunil Roy

  WHEN LAKSHMI SMASHES HER BHANDAR It is the crucifixion of humanity in Sandeshkhali of West Bengal that witnessed incessant brutality against women for several years at the patronage of the ruling party of the state. The narratives of barbarism perpetrated by the state agency is certainly not the same as that of the Middle Ages. It is worse than that particularly because such a process of criminalization gained instantaneous protection under the veil of democracy. The nudity of (…)

• India on the brink with RSS in Charge | Arun Srivastava

  23 March 2024

  The expose of India’s behemothic electoral bond scam has unravelled an existential crisis in the country’s democratic future. It may sound obnoxious, but it is a fact and not a mere threat perception. India has already been facing a crisis in the functioning of the institutional pillars of Government. Narendra Modi and his colleagues have been making attempts to control the judiciary after making the bureaucracy scrawl.
  In 1996 the Fodder Scam in which Lalu Prasad Yadav was supposedly (…)

• Reinforcing the Campaign for Inclusive Development | Suranjita Ray

  23 March 2024, by Suranjita Ray

  India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth surged to 8.4 per cent for third quarter pushing the growth rate to 7.6 per cent for 2023-24. In the context of the forthcoming elections, the robust GDP growth rate and data of Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) for 2022-23 have become important declarations for the government to assure a ‘Viksit Bharat’ (developed nation) by 2047. It is important to reiterate that though economic growth is a necessary and powerful instrument of (…)

• The Spectacle of the Ambani Wedding Event Reveals India’s Inequality | Sonia Faleiro

  23 March 2024

  March 17, 2024
  Rihanna, Mark Zuckerberg, bejeweled elephants and 5,500 drones. Those were some of the highlights of what is likely the most ostentatious “pre-wedding” ceremony the modern world has ever seen.
  On a long weekend in early March, members of the global elite gathered to celebrate the impending nuptials of the billionaire business titan Mukesh Ambani’s youngest son, Anant, and Radhika Merchant. Monarchs, politicians and the ultrawealthy, including Bill Gates and Ivanka Trump, (…)

• One more Divisive Issue: CAA | Ram Puniyani

  23 March 2024, by Ram Puniyani

  As the massive scam related to electoral bonds was unfolding the Home Minister Mr. Amit Shah declared the rules and procedures for implementation of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which was passed nearly four years ago. The correlation of its implementation now, when the electoral bond scam is coming to the surface and the General Elections are round the corner, is very obvious knowing the pattern of politics pursued by BJP.
  One recalls that, CAA was brought to fore in the aftermath of (…)

• Access to water is a crisis for the powerless | Prakash Kashwan

  23 March 2024

  March 20, 2024
  Fair access to water is an issue for millions of people in India. Who controls access and how this is governed needs fixing.
  Almost 100 years ago around 3,000 Dalits, or "untouchables", dared to drink from a public water tank in Mahad, Maharashtra, that was forbidden to them.
  The Mahad Satyagraha civil rights movement — was led by noted lawyer, social reformer, and Dalit leader B.R. Ambedkar who then took on the upper-caste people of the area who claimed the tank was (…)

• Hyper-nationalism hurting India–Maldives relations | Rishabh Yadav

  23 March 2024

  Indians took to social media to boycott visits to the Maldives because of insults to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India. A teacher from Gurukul school of art paints a poster condemning the Maldivian ministers’ statements on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India in general, Mumbai, India, 9 January 2024 (Photo: Reuters/Ashish Vaishnav). Rishabh Yadav
  Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s January 2024 visit to the Lakshadweep islands has led to diplomatic fallout between New (…)

• Pride Shattered, Israel Faces Grim Truths | M.R. Narayan Swamy

  23 March 2024, by M R Narayan Swamy

  Five months after a Hamas blitzkrieg shook its foundations like never before, Israel realizes for the first time after its controversial birth in 1948 that its world will never be the same again.
  Despite slaughtering more than 30,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, in the unending and horrific war on Gaza, Israel’s supposed military might is nowhere close to locating its hostages still being held by Hamas.
  And notwithstanding a mammoth intelligence machinery it has built over the (…)