Mainstream Weekly

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• The Death of Hind | Murzban Jal

  17 February 2024

  Hind!
  O, gentle Hind.
  You were barely a few years old,
  Not deserving to die.
  But you did die,
  Or should one say, murdered.
  Not by a stray bullet,
  But by the wrath of the Promised Land,
  Where not peace prevails,
  But rage,
  Of dreams of past glory.
  To save yourself, you fled,
  With your mother, father, siblings and friends
  And they, all
  One by one,
  Were shot.
  Not by snipers,
  But by the wrath of the Promised Land
  And you cried out
  Pleading for help,
  Which never came,
  In (…)

• Farmers’ Movement: Bar Association president’s letter denotes the fall of civil society | Prem Singh

  17 February 2024, by Prem Singh

  Have we ceased to be a wakeful and sensitive civil society and instead have become the horns of parties, leaders and governments? Whatever profession we are in, have we lost all respect for our responsibility and dignity? It is understandable that a pro-corporate government should launch a campaign to defame the farmers from the very first day of its agitation against the government’s apathy to their long-pending demands. Because it considers the people of the country, especially the (…)

• Bab-el-Mandeb Strait Tensions: The Global Impact on Maritime Security and the Blue Economy | Santosh Mathew

  17 February 2024

  The Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean via the Gulf of Aden, is now in international news. The Suez Canal which is the world’s largest man-made waterway is on the northern side of the Red Sea. The canal, which is 193 km long and now close to 200 meters wide, connects the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea. The Houthis are attacking the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait within this, which is merely 26 kilometres wide.
  Operation Prosperity Guardian, led by the United (…)

• South Koreans blame feminism for demographic collapse | Dylan Motin

  17 February 2024

  South Korea’s pressing fertility challenge is complex and solely linking it to feminism deflects focus from underlying societal and structural contributors to the demographic crisis. To boost natality rates, addressing factors such as extended work hours, economic stress, mounting household debts and cultural expectations on childcare and marriage is crucial. Policymakers must tackle the issue with unbiased, trans-partisan efforts rooted in comprehensive diagnoses, rather than succumbing to ideological divides.

• Pakistan: Fraudulent elections ensure the army’s status quo | Claude Rakisits

  17 February 2024

  February 12, 2024
  By anyone’s standard, the elections held in Pakistan on February 8 were neither free nor fair.
  Under the leadership of General Asim Munir, the military ‘massaged’ three-time leader Nawaz Sharif’s return to power. Sharif, a convicted corrupt politician, has had an ambivalent relationship with the army for the last 40 years.
  Prior to polling day, the military and the judiciary had ensured that the highly popular former prime minister Imran Khan and his Pakistan (…)

• Open Letter to Western European Workers | Petr Kropotkin

  17 February 2024

  With the outbreak of war, the anarchist newspaper Temps Nouveaux, in which Kropotkin was a regular contributor, had to be suspended, as almost all its readers and subscribers went off to war. In its place the publishing group of Temps Nouveaux — Jean Grave, Kropotkin, Guerin, Paul Reclus, Cherkezishvili, and others — published a series of pamphlets: the first, issued in May 1916, contained a “declaration

• 

  AITUC Condemns the Centre’s Brute Force Against Farmers | Feb 13, 2024

  17 February 2024

  Press Release by AITUC Secretariat on 13.02.2024
  AITUC Condemns the Centre’s Brute Force Against Farmers
  News is being flashed that the farmers’ column coming towards Delhi in support of their demands, is being tear-gassed, being doused with water-cannons from drones etc. Early reports also mentioned heavy barricading of roads with cement blocks, sharp nails etc. This is utterly condemnable, as the Centre had given written assurances accepting Farmers’ demands while requesting them to (…)

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  Letter to the Prime Minister Modi over failure to meet promisses and repressin against farmers | SKM, Feb 13, 2024

  17 February 2024

  Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM)
  13th February 2024, New Delhi
  Letter to the Prime Minister
  To, Narendra Modi ji , Hon’ble Prime Minister of India North Block, New Delhi, Govt of India
  Subject: Failure to Fulfill Promises to Farmers and Repression Let Loose on Farmers Protest in Punjab - Haryana Border. Kisan Movement will resist united and single-minded any act of authoritarianism and excessive use of state power
  Sir,
  We write to you once again on the eve of our All India call (…)

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  Stop Waging War against our Farmers - Statment by PUCL, Feb 15, 2024

  17 February 2024

  PEOPLE’S UNION FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES
  332, Patpar Ganj, Opp. Anand Lok Apartments, (Gate No. 2), Mayur Vihar-I, Delhi 110 091
  Founder: Jayaprakash Narayan; Founding President: V M Tarkunde
  President: Ms. Kavita Srivastava (Rajasthan); General Secretary: V Suresh (Tamil Nadu); E.mail:, Please visit our website: www.pucl.org
  15.02.2024
  PUCL condemns the Union Government:
  Stop Waging War against our Farmers
  The (…)

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  Supreme Court ruling renders the electoral bonds scheme unconstitutional - Statements by CPI(M) & CPI

  17 February 2024

  [Text of Statements by Left Parties]
  o o
  Communist Party of India (Marxist) Central Committee
  Press Statement February 15, 2024
  A Historic Verdict
  The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) hails the historic judgment of the Supreme Court, which has struck down the electoral bonds scheme as unconstitutional. By this verdict, this unscrupulous scheme designed to finance the ruling party by anonymous corporate donors has been completely scrapped.
  The CPI(M) had declared at the outset itself (…)