Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• India’s workforce woes | Anthony P D’Costa

  15 April 2023

  by Anthony P D’Costa *
  The 2019 satirical film Eeb Allay Ooo! highlights the grim reality of India’s employment crisis. The protagonist, who lacks marketable skills, takes on the impossible job of chasing away monkeys from public spaces. The subcontractor, not happy with his employee’s performance, hurls insults, withholds his wages and finally fires him. The film unwittingly captures what is wrong with India’s labour markets. Labourers pull the cart carrying bags of garlic on their way to (…)

• The Forgotten Workers leader — Santosh Kumari Devi — A tribute | Jayanta Kumar Ghosal

  15 April 2023

  by Jayanta Kumar Ghosal *
  19th century Bengal witnessed many events leading to the rise of nationalist sentiment. In 1878 the country saw the massive protest against Vernacular Press Act. Radical Bengali nationalists began organising peasantry and workers of various industries. Bramho reformers took important role in this respect. Two persons Ramkumar Vidyaratna and Dwarakanath Ganguly are the names worth mentioning who vividly described and exposed the oppression of tea garden labours (…)

• What Sparing The Adani Group From JPC Probe, Reflects? — Need For Control of Conglomerates & Monopoly Power | Aurobindo Ghose

  15 April 2023, by Aurobindo Ghose

  by Aurobindo Ghose
  The Gautam Adani group has been catching headlines since about the last week of January 2023.
  Two recent exposures of the Gautam Adani conglomerate, have inflicted sufficient market punishment on it. One by the Hindenburgh short seller’s accusation of “brazen stock market manipulation and accounting fraud”, triggered an huge sell-off of its shares, wiping out about $118 billion of its market valuation. While the Bangalore – based Ken report’s exposure of non-repayment (…)

• Iris Murdoch Prize-the reborn Booker Prize | Devaki Jain

  15 April 2023, by Devaki Jain

  A brilliant move of the Booker Prize-wallas to rename the Booker Prize with Iris Murdoch’s name. Many of us who had the privilege and the joy to be her students at Oxford believe that this renaming would bring a huge new audience and fans for this great thinker, as well as very different criteria for choosing the winner.
  For those of us who were her tutorial students at St. Anne’s College in Oxford, in the late 50s and early 60s, being taught by Iris was exceptional. She was the moral (…)

• A splendid dream interrupted | Jawed Naqvi

  15 April 2023, by Jawed Naqvi

  THE 1968 students’ uprising in Europe changed the matrix of campus politics in much of the world, India being no exception. Lahore-born Suneet Chopra was a student at SOAS in London around the time and was inevitably influenced by the compelling logic of revolutionary change. In December 1970, the Students Federation of India (SFI) was created in Kerala from the clay of a divided communist movement. Two years later, Suneet was scouting for talent to expand the reach of the students’ (…)

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  Thai Civil Society Groups Express Concern over Deportation of Refugees and Asylum Seekers to Myanmar

  15 April 2023

  via Facebook
  Friends Against Dictatorship - FAD
  Public statement by 46 Thai civil society organizations regarding the deportation of asylum seekers from the People’s Defence Force to the Myanmar dictator regime
  The Myanmar dictator regime has ascended to power through staging a military coup to topple a democratically elected government. It was the decimation of the supreme power of the people of Myanmar. The only legitimate ruling government in Myanmar should be the National Unity (…)

• Impact of the Russia-Ukraine War on Ukrainian Youth | Shete & Wamane

  15 April 2023

  by B.R. Shete & G.V Wamane *
  Introduction:
  The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has been one of the major issues affecting the region and its people in recent years. On February 24th, 2022, Russia launched a comprehensive military offensive against Ukraine. This has led to the loss of thousands of lives and injuries to many others. The individuals who are being impacted the most by these developments are women, children, and the youth. The impact of the conflict on Ukrainian (…)

• The cost of war leaves Ukraine struggling to pay its teachers | Kateryna Semchuk

  15 April 2023

  by Kateryna Semchuk
  6 April 2023,
  Ukraine has been forced to cut school grants and local authorities are now scrambling to fund teachers’ wages
  Russia’s invasion is forcing the Ukrainian government to implement austerity measures in the education sector – as the country’s teachers express concerns about a cost of living crisis.
  Interviews with local officials, teachers and trade union activists in Ukraine reveal the extent of the cuts instituted by the Ukrainian government.
  More (…)

• These neurons are the reason you yawn when you see others do it – and they could help us teach children more creatively too | Estrada & Prioris

  15 April 2023

  by Laura Trujillo Estrada & Agustina María Torres Prioris *
  March 29, 2023
  Have you ever wondered why when we see someone yawn, we yawn almost immediately? Or how newborns imitate facial gestures like sticking out their tongue? And what about how we learn to use scissors or to colour?
  It all has a lot to do with a particular type of neuron called “mirror neurons”. What are mirror neurons?
  Mirror neurons are amazing neurons that participate in important processes such as (…)

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  A Classic on Indian Magic | M.R. Narayan Swamy

  15 April 2023, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
  Jadoowallahas, Jugglers, and Jinns:
  A Magical History of India
  by John Zubrzycki
  Pan Macmillan India — Picador India Pages: 508 ISBN 9789386215352 __0__
  Magic, in case you did not know, is as old as India. Indeed, the blurred boundaries between magic, mythology and religion continue to be the defining feature of Indian enchantment, the origins of which go back to the start of the Harappan civilization nearly 5,000 years ago. Australian diplomat-turned-writer John (…)