Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Rising Partisanship Eroding Institutional Independence and Systemic Challenges | Arun Kumar

  8 October, by Arun Kumar

  India is facing widespread systemic challenges – in legislatures, judiciary, bureaucracy, police, educational institutions, religious places, safety of women, etc. These make citizen’s life difficult. This spreading malaise is caused by the fraying of institutional independence. If institutions do not work the way they should, they won’t deliver what they are supposed to and that impacts societal functioning and leads to disarray.
  Election Commission
  The latest example of institutional (…)

• On A Curious Case of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study | Arup Maharatna

  8 October, by Arup Maharatna

  Fortunately or unfortunately, in this concertedly imposed global age of AI, which we all are virtually forced to inhabit, writing up a thematic/topical essay does not require its author to set out with an introductory section or a brief background discussion on the topic, or issue, or the institution to be dealt with – thanks to AI, which instantly delivers a seemingly cogent introductory remarks on damn anything on earth with just a single click or touch on the universally accessible (…)

• Online spaces and real-world taboos - Why India needs education on reproductive health | Mohini Yadav

  8 October

  Women’s online voice - Postpartum shaming
  Today, Instagram and similar digital platforms are not just for entertainment or watching reels. Instead, they have become more informative spaces where women can easily share their thoughts, rights, feminist views and their opinions on public policy and social issues in our society. Women often cannot speak openly because of patriarchal rules, but these platforms act as a helpful tool for them to voice their minds. This is a very good thing (…)

• The New Poem | Sagari Chhabra

  8 October, by Sagari Chhabra

  I walked up the mountain so stolid, so whole, it spoke to my soul; ‘These rocks took aeons to create, must you generate dust and debris; for you are destroying the intrinsic foundation of my strength, with your blasted development’. Weary of the city’s heat I went to the river to soak my blistered feet; ‘My daughter, that dam has blocked my back-waters, they’ve drowned villages, temples and even the rich alluvial soil; must you foil the potters’ living; the villagers who grew their (…)

• Corporatisation of Healthcare Undermines Public Health | Arun Mitra

  8 October, by Arun Mitra

  The corporatisation of healthcare has led to exclusion of vast majority from the quality healthcare. There is need to build a public movement for health for all.
  The remarkable advances in evidence-based modern medicine have made life easier, reduced mortality and increased longevity. To ensure that these benefits reach all citizens, it is imperative that the State takes responsibility for providing healthcare to everyone. From the immediate post-Independence period until the early 1980s, (…)

• Skilling Up, Accessibility Down: The Contradiction at the Heart of Budget 2026’s Disability Agenda | Sanya Roy

  8 October

  For years, India’s disability budget has been read through a single lens: how much welfare cash reaches people with disabilities, and how little of it there is. Union Budget 2026-27 tries to change that conversation. Two new flagship schemes, the Divyangjan Kaushal Yojana and the Divyang Sahara Yojana, reframe disability spending as an investment in workers rather than a handout to dependents. It is a genuine philosophical shift. Whether the numbers back it up is a different question.
  The (…)

• Sumit Sarkar and the Craft of Historical Inquiry | Aftab Mohammad

  8 October

  I have always thought of myself as an accidental student of history. While learning its alphabet, I found myself struggling with seemingly simple questions: What is history? How is it written? Why does one write it? Whose account becomes history, and whose remains outside its pages?
  These questions gradually became more concrete. We know about the king, but what about the people he ruled? If the prince is there, where is the peasant? Where are women? Where are workers, artisans and those (…)

• After the Second Congress | A. Losovsky (1923)

  8 October

  Reproduced from Labor Herald. Vol. 1 No. 12. February, 1923
  Debates between Communists and Syndicalists continued to dominate the Profintern’s Second World Congress. Lozovsky reports.
  THE Second Congress of the Red International closed an epoch of the International movement, showing today the difficulties which in the future the world’s labor movement must surmount. This movement is formed of diverse elements with contrasting traditions and opinions which will only disappear during the (…)

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  Bata: A multinational that stole Indian hearts | M.R. Narayan Swamy

  8 October, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW Batanagar: A Personal History of India’s Forgotten Company Town
  by Paramita Sen
  Pan Macmillan India Pages: xxi + 225 It goes to the credit of Bata that it merged so beautifully with Indian ethos that millions for a long time never suspected that it was a multinational from Europe.
  Bata’s quiet birth in India during the British rule, its steady expansion both before and after the country’s independence, and its closeness to the icons of the freedom movement gave the (…)

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  Video: How Capitalism Really Works ? | Anwar Sheikh

  8 October

  Play
  How Capitalism Really Works (with Anwar Shaikh) by Jacobin https://youtu.be/ybUxe5m3nwI?si=X2ip4BBhkEDbXmLg