Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• A Note on Prakash Thapaliyal’s Hindi Short Story ‘Chani’ | Nilanshu Kumar Agarwal

  1 November

  A symbiotic relationship exists between the humans, particularly the women, leading a spontaneous life away from the din of urban noise and the Mother Nature itself. These rural folk and forest dwellers are the true descendants of Wordsworth’s Michael and the Solitary Reaper, living in close proximity with nature. Like Michael, they know the ‘meaning of all winds’ and ‘the heart of many thousand mists’.
  As one moves away from the core forest towards towards the cities, this relationship (…)

• Poverty and deprivation shaped Lula da Silva’s politics | M.R. Narayan Swamy

  1 November, by M R Narayan Swamy

  For a very long time, his only companions were grinding poverty and a constant challenge to see food on the table. He himself may not have known that these early struggles to survive would shape Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to become one of the most respected socialist leaders in the world.
  On October 26, Lula, now 81, stunned Brazil and much of the world alike by coming from behind to overcome strong opposition from the Trump-backed Flavio Bolsonaro by taking 51.8 per cent of all the votes (…)

• France and Europe: A Crisis of Transition to Service Society in 21st Century | Anil Rajimwale

  1 November, by Anil Rajimwale

  The recent upsurge in France and Europe reflect deep underlying processes of transition from industrial to service society in 21st century. France is a rich country, culturally, politically, philosophically, and also economically, known for outstanding thinkers from Saint Simon and Charles Fourier to Sartre to Andre Malraux and Maurice Thorez, Jacques Duclos and of people like Romain Rolland who left their indelible mark on modern history.
  It has a wide kaleidoscope of powerful (…)

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  Stop Privatisation of IDBI — Joint Statement from Trade Unions (Nov 1, 2026)

  1 November

  JOINT PLATFORM OF CENTRAL TRADE UNIONS
  PRESS RELEASE
  1st November 2026 | New Delhi
  Stop IDBI Privatisation —defend public ownership and economic sovereignty
  Investigate reported irregularities, suspend the sale and make all the transaction documents public
  The Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions strongly condemns the Government’s decision to transfer the combined controlling stake of the Government of India and the Life Insurance Corporation in IDBI Bank to a foreign-controlled (…)

• Birth of a Cosmopolitan Nationalism in India? | Arup Kumar Sen

  22 October, by Arup Kumar Sen

  In the seminal book edited by Homi K. Bhabha titled Nation and Narration (Routledge, London and New York, 1990), the editor made a significant observation in his introduction: “The ‘locality’ of national culture is neither unified nor unitary in relation to itself, nor must it be seen simply as ‘other’ in relation to what is outside or beyond it. The boundary is Janus-faced and the problem of outside/inside must always itself be a process of hybridity, incorporating new ‘people’ in relation (…)

• AITUC Opposes the sale of IDBI - Monetisation of public assets should stop | Oct 22, 2026

  22 October

  DOCUMENT
  All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC)
  Press Release
  Date:22.10.2026
  All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) vehemently and vociferously opposes the Union Cabinet’s approval of the sale of assets worth Rs52,748 Crores of the Public owned IDBI Bank to Canada’s Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd, It is highly condemnable that the BJP government continues its economic folly of monetizing public assets to the profit driven corporate interests, without the least of concern to public (…)

• Review of Stefan Peychev’s The Nature of the Ottoman City Water and Urban Space in Sofia, 1380s–1910s | Dale Stahl

  22 October

  BOOK REVIEW
  The Nature of the Ottoman City Water and Urban Space in Sofia, 1380s–1910s
  by Stefan Peychev
  Cambridge University Press 2024. 204 pp. (cloth), ISBN 978-1-00-955885-3 Reviewed by Dale Stahl (University of Colorado Denver)
  The Ottoman city of Sofia, Bulgaria, was once the center of the empire’s European domains, the provincial capital of Rumeli. It was also a city of water with a sophisticated hydraulic infrastructure of pipes, public fountains, thermal baths, and (…)

• Economic Growth vs. Social Justice: The Post-Liberalisation Dilemma in India | Nithya N.R

  21 October

  Abstract This article examines the intricate dynamics between economic growth and social justice in post-liberalisation India, a period marked by significant economic reforms initiated in the early 1990s. While these reforms have catalysed impressive GDP growth and attracted foreign investment, they have also exacerbated social inequalities and marginalised vulnerable populations. The article argues that the neoliberal development model, driven primarily by market-oriented reforms and (…)

• Trump’s contempt for her Nobel is a tribute to Navanethem Pillay | M.R. Narayan Swamy

  21 October, by M R Narayan Swamy

  In 2025, as Israel pulverized Gaza, leading jurist Navanethem Pillay, widely known as Navi, led a U.N. commission that found Israel guilty of committing genocide against Palestinians in the beleaguered strip. Israel bristled.
  The former U.N. human rights chief also headed an international tribunal probing the 1994 massacres in Rwanda whose landmark ruling declared that widespread rape and sexual violence could constitute acts of genocide.
  Closer to India, Pillay got into the bad books of (…)

• Another India, Cast Out of Time and Place: Why India’s Youth Movements Stop at the Rural Edge | K. Sahadevan

  21 October, by K. Sahadevan

  “ No two fermions can occupy the identical quantum state.” This is the principle articulated by the Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli when he introduced his famous Exclusion Principle. Simply put, two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
  It is the ongoing protests in Delhi that bring this Exclusion Principle—a concept of profound significance in quantum physics—to mind. While these protests have infused new vitality into Indian democracy and stand as a testament to the (…)