Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Remembering Karpoori Thakur : His relevance in the present times | Prem Singh

  11 March 2023, by Prem Singh

  (On the occasion of the birth centenary of Karpoori Thakur)
  For the last two years, various programs are being organized to commemorate the birth centenary of socialist leader Madhu Limaye (1 May 1922-8 January 1995). January also marks the birth centenary years of two other prominent socialist leaders, Madhu Dandavate (21 January 1924–12 November 2005) and Karpoori Thakur (24 January 1924–17 February 1988). Karpoori Thakur’s birth centenary celebrations began on 24 January 2023 in (…)

• As Women’s Premier League Starts, Don’t Look Back in Anger | Aparajita

  11 March 2023

  As the WPL (Women’s Premier League) began on 4th of March, the mood in the women’s cricket fraternity of India was triumphant, and bullish. Countless articles exploring its potential for the women’s game and for women’s sport on a larger scale have already been written. Such is the jubilation in the popular discourse, that when I caught up with some of the girls from what I now refer to as the forgotten generation, not a single one of them permitted their names being used for this piece. (…)

• The Hijabian Choice: A Psychoanalytic Reading of the Unveiling of the Veil | Murzban Jal

  11 March 2023

  by Murzban Jal
  Not only in its answers, in its questions there was a mystification. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology.
  The Veil and Its Discontents
  When very suddenly and out of the blue, young Muslim girls were asked not to wear their hijabs when entering classrooms in a Karnataka school, the entire nation was made to see and listen to this unfortunate spectacle of a young hijab wearing Muslim girl being heckled by school boys with saffron scarves. The clash of (…)

• The Red Roar: Promises and Possibilities | Shubham Sharma

  11 March 2023

  by Shubham Sharma *
  The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation’s eleventh party congress concluded its final session on 20th February 2023. The five-day long event saw the city of Patna being painted red and marked the arrival of party delegates and guests from across the world. The event took place at a time when bourgeois democracy in India is serving its comeuppance at the hands of the communal-fascistic RSS-BJP, and its seems that there is no easy way out. However, it (…)

• Celebrating love: Beyond borders and boundaries of religion, caste, and nationality | Saman Shafiq

  11 March 2023

  by Saman Shafiq
  “In the process of suppressing individual happiness over centuries, we have encouraged agents of hate, discrimination, and violence,” comments journalist Aekta Kapoor, moderating an online discussion promoting equality and harmony
  7 March 2023: Love comes with challenges in any part of the world. In Southasia, these obstacles are even more pronounced, with barriers of caste, race, gender, religion, and ethnicity.
  The recent case of Pakistani woman Iqra Jeewani, 19, and (…)

• The War in Ukraine | Sagari Chhabra

  11 March 2023, by Sagari Chhabra

  ‘What is a catastrophe?’ asks my child. ‘When you turn humans into wild cats and asses, then hand each a trophy, of arms.’ My child notes this with a sense of calm. Then turning her face towards me she asks, ‘What is a collateral damage?’ ‘When you tell a grieving woman the home she built with all her savings, has just been bombed by a cluster’s shavings. But why do you need to know this?’ I venture to ask. ‘I am doing my home task. There are some blanks my teacher has asked me to fill; (…)

• The political theatre behind Philippines police cleansing | Steffen Jensen and Karl Hapal

  11 March 2023

  by Steffen Jensen and Karl Hapal *
  In January 2023, the Philippines’ Secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government, Benjamin Abalos Jr, initiated a process of vetting top police officials. This process calls for the courtesy resignation of all generals and colonels of the Philippine National Police (PNP) while a committee of five assesses their involvement in drug dealing in the Philippines.
  Abalos presented the initiative as a bold move to rid the PNP of ‘bad apples’ and (…)

• The UN Vote: India has No Choice | Papri Sri Raman

  11 March 2023, by Papri Sen Sri Raman

  FEBRUARY WAS AN important month for India. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, visiting Bengaluru on 23 February, to participate in the primary G20 finance ministers’ and financial institution governors’ (G7 FMCBG) assembly in the G20 talks (with India as chair) said, ‘imparting any help to Russia’ or any ‘help to avoid any systemic evasion of sanctions, could be a ‘‘critical problem’’ for the United States’. Her’s was no threat, only a wish that India support the sanctions against Russia. (…)

• Metaphor In Orbit (Science is Not All Social Relations) | Hilary Rose & Stephen Rose

  11 March 2023

  by Hilary Rose & Stephen Rose
  This is an abridged version of an article which appeared in Science Bulletin 22, 1979, a communist science and technology journal published in the United Kingdom.
  In November 1976, we published an edited collection of articles (in two volumes: The Political Economy of Science and The Radicalisation of Science, Macmillan) attempting to define some of the theoretical issues relevant to a Marxist understanding of science under capitalism, as they had (…)

• 

  Prakash Singh and the Future of Police Reforms in Independent India | KS Subramanian

  11 March 2023, by K S Subramanian

  BOOK REVIEW
  __0__
  The Struggle For Police Reforms in India : Ruler’s Police to People’s Police by Prakash Singh
  Rupa Publications India May 2022 Paperback ‏ : ‎ 432 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9355202474 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9355202475
  __0__
  Prakash Singh is a leading former IPS officers of India. He belongs to the Uttar Pradesh cadre of the IPS and was the state’s Director General of Police. He was also DG of the Border Security Force, a Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) such as the CRPF (…)