Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Low Budgets, Inequalities Impede Educational Progress in India | Bharat Dogra

  17 February 2023, by Bharat Dogra

  Adequate investment in equality-based education is widely accepted as one of the key components as well as a strong base for the progress of developing countries. Despite this, educational progress in India has been impeded badly by low budgets as well as inequalities.
  There is near consensus, even at the official level, regarding the need to take government educational budget to the level of around 6% of GNP (as stated in the National Education Policy as well), combining union and state (…)

• Alert students amid spineless vice-chancellors | Avijit Pathak

  17 February 2023, by Avijit Pathak

  I have no hesitation in saying that the way the Government of India has responded to the BBC documentary — India: The Modi Question — is pathetic. It reveals the essential paradox of all ‘powerful’ regimes. Yes, this sort of power and associated cult of narcissism or seeds of authoritarianism breed chronic psychic anxiety and existential insecurity — say, the fear of critical interrogation by those who dare to differ and dissent.
  No wonder, a documentary on the 2002 Gujarat riots so (…)

• Case of Institutional Violence in SAARC University | Sandeep Pandey

  17 February 2023, by Sandeep Pandey

  South Asian University is a university set up in Delhi by member countries of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation – India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, and Maldives – which is open to students from all these countries. However, as SAARC is receiving little attention these days because of regional political dynamics, it appears as if SAU has lost significance too. Because of the hiatus in the peace process between India and Pakistan, the Board of (…)

• Wellbeing of Universities Relies on the Vice Chancellors: Time to Reckon | S. K. Saidapur

  17 February 2023

  by S. K. Saidapur *
  Vice Chancellors (VCs) are responsible for smooth and efficient management of universities. Nevertheless, varsity governance is not merely about controlling or managing administration; it is equally about providing visionary leadership. Therefore, a person with a clear vision, a roadmap, and competency to accomplish the set vision and missions is needed to steer the university to greater heights. Hence, those with known leadership qualities, good academic and (…)

• What do Gubernatorial appointments in the Northeast foretell? | Kumar Sanjay Singh

  17 February 2023

  Winston Churchill is credited to have stated, ‘Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business’. The recent appointments to as many as 13 gubernatorial posts, when countdown for Loksabha elections 2024 has already begun, confirms Churchill’s aphorism.
  Perhaps the most significant story lurking behind the recent appointments is the increasing profile of northeastern states in the political arithmetic of BJP, by far the most electorally conscious of the contemporary political parties. With (…)

• Rainbow Coalition in Co-operative Society Elections in West Bengal — Is it the beginning of an End? | K Gireesan and Sujit Kumar Paul

  17 February 2023

  by K Gireesan and Sujit Kumar Paul *
  Background
  After the State Legislative Assembly Elections held in West Bengal in the year 2021, number of scams unearthed in the State. The Central Investigating agencies such as Central Bureau of Investigation, Directorate of Enforcement, and Income Tax Department investigated the scams like West Bengal Teacher Recruitment Scam, Coal Scam, Lottery Scam, etc. by court orders. There is a sense of anger against the Ruling party of the State, All India (…)

• Black days ahead if coal city does not change | Shatabdi Das

  17 February 2023

  by Shatabdi Das *
  Unsafe and disaster-prone, extractive towns are still attractive to migrant workers.
  The coalfields around Asansol, 210km northwest of Kolkata in West Bengal have provided a way of life for workers since colonial times. But for the thousands drawn to the area for job opportunities, those same mines also carry the risk of death.
  Along with the prosperity coal has brought for mining companies comes pollution, shaft collapses and displacement.
  These problems have (…)

• CPI(ML) Liberation Calls for Broadest Coalition to Resist Hindutva Right | Arun Srivastava

  17 February 2023

  by Arun Srivastava
  Philosophy of Hindutva acquiring a toxic dimension and politics of divisiveness getting deeply anchored in the body politick of the country, it has become imperative for the revolutionary communists to bring about some minor but significant changes in its policy and programme.
  Taking forward its task adopted at the 10th Congress of the CPI (ML- Liberation) to defeat of the supremacist RSS through effective intervention in the electoral arena to challenge and defeat the (…)

• Mother Tongue & Wider Culture | Humra Quraishi

  17 February 2023, by Humra Quraishi

  8 February 2023
  On this Upcoming International Mother Language Day - 21 February 2023
  My grasp of my mother tongue, Urdu, is dismal. And till this day I feel rather upset about this. And I do blame the political cum bureaucratic system for depriving the children from the minority community of their mother tongue. Not to overlook the basic fact that Urdu is not taught in a majority of schools in India and with that out of the learning grasp of the school-going Muslim children.
  My (…)

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  Zia Mohyeddin: One of a kind | Beena Sarwar

  17 February 2023

  by Beena Sarwar
  Born: 30 June (or 20 December) 1931, Lyallpur; Passed on: 13 February 2023, Karachi
  The great Zia Mohyeddin was already a legend when I first interacted with him as an adult in the mid-1990s. He had recently moved to Lahore where I then lived at Lakshmi Mansion at Regal Chowk. I was working on the launch of weekly The News on Friday, a brainchild of my editor the multi-talented Imran (…)