Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Communalism Everywhere | Humra Quraishi

  2 December 2022, by Humra Quraishi

  30 November 2022
  I’m writing this column in the backdrop of last week’s incident, where a young Muslim student was taunted along the communal strain. No, not by his class fellows but by his teacher.
  Mind you, that incident shows how, over the years, the communal virus has intruded rather too obnoxiously into class rooms.
  Taking you to the early 90s. That is, months before the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992. There were ample relays that the communal virus was intruding into the (…)

• Managerial Universities | Bhabani Shankar Nayak

  2 December 2022

  by Bhabani Shankar Nayak
  Universities are experiencing depoliticization, marketisation and the deepening of managerialism over last three decades. The campuses across the globe are witnessing the growth of car park culture of managerialism where students and staff members are treated as cash cows or cars in the car parks. The Vice Chancellors, Deputy Vice Chancellors and their managerial elks run universities like badly managed undemocratic family firms. The growth of compliance culture is (…)

• The Right to Offend | Santosh Mathew and Anita Elizabeth Mathew

  2 December 2022

  by Santhosh Mathew and Anita Elizabeth Mathew *
  No idea is above scrutiny; No people are below dignity —Majid Nawaz
  __0__
  This article addresses one of the most polarising concepts in today’s India — the Right to Offend. Two events have fuelled this discussion. First, the Supreme Court’s attemp to remove the existing Sedition Law, inherited from India’s colonial rulers (inserted into the IPC in 1870). Secondly, the fall of India’s and South Asia’s ranking in the World Press Freedom (…)

• Strengthening the Congress with new ideology and vigour | Arun Srivastava

  2 December 2022

  by Arun Srivastava
  With Congress consistently on move towards its final destination, Srinagar, the BJP will turn more aggressive and mount a virulent calumny against Rahul Gandhi. BJP is certainly not afraid of Congress, instead it is the move of Rahul Gandhi to give a leftist orientation to its ideological narrative that has chilling effect on Modi.
  Historical facts are testimony to the shift of allegiance of the rightist elements and supporters. They continue to identify with the (…)

• Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY): An apolitical perspective | Nayakara Veeresha

  2 December 2022, by Nayakara Veeresha

  by Nayakara Veeresha *
  The 7th September, 2022 is one of the watershed moments in the country. The Indian National Congress (INC, hereafter Congress) Party’s former President Rahul Gandhi has begun the Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY, Unite India Pilgrimage/March) from the historic Kanniyakumari of Tamil Nadu. The Kanniyakumari district has a special place in the history and civilisation of our country. It is the same place where Swami Vivekananda has meditated on the future of India in 1892 after (…)

• Reflections on Events in Afghanistan — 41 | M K Bhadrakumar

  2 December 2022, by M K Bhadrakumar

  41. US brings culture wars to Afghanistan
  The time has come to pick up threads from my blog of January 27 titled The West co-opts the Taliban[[https://www.indianpunchline.com/reflections-on-events-in-afghanistan-40]. Indeed, the wheel has come full circle since the three-day conclave in Oslo on January 23-25 between a core group of Western diplomats with Taliban officials failed to work out a reasonable modus vivendi. The pendulum has since swung to the other extreme.
  Afghanistan has (…)

• Somalia’s Long Journey from Prosperity to Hunger Deaths | Bharat Dogra

  2 December 2022, by Bharat Dogra

  In the hunger map of present day world, Somalia is probably the most seriously affected country of the 21st century. Somalia is reported by the UN to have lost 260,000 lives in and around 2011 to hunger and famine deaths, one of the very few countries in the world to have such a high number of recorded hunger deaths in recent times, despite having a population of only around 17 million or so. Today, just a decade or so later, the country is probably in an even worse situation. At that time (…)

• Hungary’s Victor Orban uses soccer to project Greater Hungary and racial exclusivism | James M. Dorsey

  2 December 2022

  by James M. Dorsey
  Dec 2, 2022
  Hungary didn’t qualify for the Qatar World Cup, but that hasn’t stopped Prime Minister Victor Orban from exploiting the world’s current focus on soccer to signal his Putinesque definition of central European borders as defined by civilization and ethnicity rather than internationally recognized frontiers.
  Mr. Orban drew the ire of Ukraine and Romania for wearing to a local Hungarian soccer match a scarf depicting historical Hungary, which also includes (…)

• Albert Einstein on God, in his letter to Erik Gutkind (1954)

  2 December 2022

  EINSTEIN’S LAST WORD ON GOD:
  "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition."
  In January of 1954, just a year before his death, Albert Einstein wrote the following (…)

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  IDPD expresses concern at death penalty to peaceful protesters by the govt. in Iran | 29 Non 2022

  2 December 2022

  Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) Website: www.idpd.org
  Date: 29.11.2022
  Press Release
  Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) expresses it grave concern on Iranian authorities indicting people with charges punishable with death for participation in peaceful demonstrations. In a statement released Dr S S Soodan – President, Dr.Satyajit Kumar Singh & Dr Arun Mitra – Senior Vice Presidents and Dr Shakeel Ur Rahman – General Secretary said that IDPD supports UN (…)