Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Nov 25, 2023

  25 November 2023

  Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, November 25, 2023
  A highway tunnel being built through the mountains in the Char Dham Hindu pilgrimage zone caved in on November 12, 2023, trapping 41 workers on the Brahmakhal-Yamunotri national highway, in the mountain state of Uttarakhand. Ever since an expensive rescue operation has been underway involving multiple agencies, specialist firms, and the Indian military whose heavy aircraft have repeatedly been used to fly in tons of equipment. This has (…)

• Caste census: game changer or false hope? | Ajay Gudavarthy

  25 November 2023

  The opposition wants to bring back caste as a check on the BJP’s reach, but the strategy may not live up to expectations.
  The results of the five state elections underway in India will be known on 3 December, and the next general election is just around the corner, in April 2024.
  In most cases, state election results have no visible impact on general elections. However, this time around they are being watched closely. The big question is whether the demand for an all-India caste census (…)

• Impact of Changing Weather Patterns and Climate Change on Construction Workers | Bharat Dogra

  25 November 2023, by Bharat Dogra

  With the onset of winter construction workers in Delhi begin to worry about the likely ban on construction work which has been imposed generally during the winter in recent years, related to efforts to reduce the level and adverse impact of pollution and smog. Although several workers feel that smaller-scale construction work does not really lead to so much dust and the dust level can be reduced further by efforts, their views are hardly ever considered by the decision-takers and they have (…)

• Reconciling Paradoxes in Climate Policy Making | Prakash C.J, Ecosystem People Supporters

  25 November 2023

  Preamble: “Our knowledge and control of the natural world, now science is seen as coping with many uncertainties in policy issues of risk and the environment. In response, new styles of scientific activity are being developed. The reductionist, analytical worldview which divides systems into ever smaller elements, studied by ever more esoteric specialism, is being replaced by a systemic, synthetic and humanistic approach. The old dichotomies of facts and values, and of knowledge and (…)

• Fatal road crashes in Southasia: From preventible to preventing | Mridul Bhasin

  25 November 2023

  The World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims is commemorated on the third Sunday of November each year. But for those who have lost loved ones to road crashes, every day is a reminder of a preventable tragedy, writes a mother who started a road safety foundation after a carelessly driven school bus in Jaipur killed her teenage daughter
  by Dr. Mridul Bhasin
  In 1999, my 17-year old daughter was killed by an out-of-control bus. The driver had previous infractions of drunk (…)

• Debate on Deindustrialization continued: Fakirmohan Senapati’s ‘Balesore Pangaluna’ | Radhakanta Barik

  25 November 2023, by Radhakanta Barik

  Abstract: On public perception, Odisha remains the poorest state but things were different in the first half 19th century. The state was bubbling with economic activities. The whole of coastal Odisha had certain key industries like Salt industry and shipbuilding industry. WW Hunter in his Statistical Account of District of Balesore tells these facts. recognizes the fact. But a story writer and novelist Fakirmohan Senapati has brought the political economy as the subtext in his story. In (…)

• Did Birsa Munda die in vain? | S.G.Vombatkere

  25 November 2023, by S G Vombatkere

  Birsa Munda, born on November 15, 1875 in Ulihatu village (present Jharkhand) in British times, died mysteriously – reportedly of cholera, but likely poisoned – as an undertrial in Ranchi Central Jail on June 9, 1900. But why was Birsa Munda in jail? He had committed the “crime” of challenging the mighty ruling British, whose Christian missionaries were engaged in conversion activities. He also militantly led Adivasi people in open revolt against government-sanctioned land-grabbing by (…)

• India’s Fight Against Poverty and Hunger | S N Tripathy

  25 November 2023, by S N Tripathy

  In the recently released Global Hunger Index (GHI) for 2023, India has been ranked at the 111th position out of 125 countries. This marks a slight decline from its position in 2022, when it was ranked 107th out of 121 countries. The report highlights a concerning trend of increasing undernourishment on a global scale since 2017.
  Undernourishment is a critical component in calculating GHI scores, and it has seen a significant rise from 572 million to approximately 735 million people within (…)

• A tale of high morality | Faraz Ahmad

  25 November 2023, by Faraz Ahmad

  There was a leader of a political party who committed adultery upon his mentor and friend’s much married wife and produced a child from this liaison. He rose to the highest position in the country. By then everyone knew of this extra marital affair and its outcome. The lady became his mistress, not wife and her poor husband was banished to Agyatvas (oblivion). Everyone knew who the leader was and which party he belonged to but I prefer not to mention any names here for this party preached (…)

• Opportunities, Optics and Identity: Vignettes from the Delhi University Students Union Elections 2023 | Radhika Kumar, Gaurav Raj, Kashish Sharma et. al.

  25 November 2023

  by Radhika Kumar, Gaurav Raj, Kashish Sharma, Priyanshu Vats, Sanskriti, Shubhangi Saini, Shantanu Deepak, Sonakshi Agrawal and Yashasvi Bhatnagar
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  Abstract
  The university is an important space that enables student initiation into democratic politics and youth activism. Starting in 1949, the practice of holding elections to a student’s union enabled cultivation of student leadership. As the university expanded and voters increased, the scale of student mobilisation and (…)