Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• July 2021 Protest Is No Cuban Spring | Jos Chathukulam

  29 July 2022, by Jos Chathukulam

  Abstract
  While the critics and foes of the Communist regime in Cuba hoped that the July 11, 2021 protests in the Caribbean island nation would turn out to be a ‘Cuban Spring’, the evidences show that Cuban government has managed to survive the protests despite ‘brewing discontent’ among Cubans. As July 11, 2022, marks the first year of the massive protest, one of the biggest in the last 27 years, it is also a time to review country’s exceptional resilience over the years in handling (…)

• The Role of Sequestration in Reversing Anthropogenic Climate Change, an Update | Anandi Sharan

  29 July 2022

  by Anandi Sharan
  22 July 2022
  10 years ago we published our view on how humanity could reverse anthropogenic climate change by halting all emissions and living a food forest life.
  Now in 2022 I wonder whether I still think our scenario of hope is feasible. One fact about the last 10 years, which is the same as from the decade before and the one before that, is that the doomsday scenario humanity finds ourselves in is not scaring the capitalists. This inhumane attitude, going back (…)

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  Joint statement In Response to the EU-India human rights dialogue – calling on the EU to address reprisals against human rights defenders in India | Forum Asia, FIDH, OMCT & others

  29 July 2022

  26 July 2022
  The joint European Union (EU)-India press release, which provides a summary of the topics discussed during the 10th EU-India human rights dialogue which took place on 15 July 2022 in New Delhi, fails to adequately address pressing issues of security and reprisals faced by human rights defenders in India, five human rights organizations said today. The organizations expressed their disappointment in the EU’s apparent failure to raise concern about the systematic attacks on (…)

• Contemporary Face of Capitalism in India | Arup Kumar Sen

  29 July 2022, by Arup Kumar Sen

  The fundamental logic of capitalist mode of production is to establish control over the labour process. How capitalism works in a social formation is a larger question. In fact, capitalism took different shapes in different geographical spaces during different periods of time. The contemporary moment of capitalism is organically linked with neoliberal paradigm of governance, which makes workers footloose to serve the interests of Capital.
  The neoliberal paradigm of governance in (…)

• Rent Seeking Hindutva Government in India | Bhabani Shankar Nayak

  29 July 2022

  by Bhabani Shankar Nayak *
  High inflation, growing unemployment and depreciating rupee are three fundamental issues faced by Indian economy today. The educational and health infrastructure is falling apart. Human development is in the bottom of the nadir. Modi government has no plans to take responsibility to navigate Indian economy away from these crises. It is passing its responsibility on Indian people by reckless hiking of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on food and other essential (…)

• Turkey Slips back on Women’s Rights and Empowerment | Gautam Sen

  29 July 2022

  The Turkish government headed by its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had pulled out of the Council of Europes Istanbul Convention (Convention) through a presidential decree issued on 20th March 2021. Turkey is a member of the Council of Europe (COE), an international organization established in 1949 and consisting of 46 member states, intended to uphold human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law in Europe based on the European Convention on Human Rights. Turkey had joined the (…)

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  Indian Spiritual Masters who Fought Orthodoxy | M.R. Narayan Swamy

  29 July 2022, by M R Narayan Swamy

  review by M.R. Narayan Swamy
  India’s Greatest Minds: Spiritual Masters, Philosophers, Reformers
  by Mukunda Rao
  Hachette India Pages: 499 Price: Rs 699
  Even hundreds of years after his death, the Sai Baba of Shirdi (1838-1918) remains one of the most widely revered and worshipped saints by millions of Hindus, Muslims and others. Born to Hindu parents and brought up by a fakir, the compassionate saint was a harsh critic of religious orthodoxy and detested the Hindu-Muslim divide. He (…)

• Autocracy in Lanka with a new face | Apratim Mukarji

  29 July 2022, by Apratim Mukarji

  Sri Lanka is now witnessing a much finer version of sophisticated and camouflaged autocracy than ever before. With the ‘fleeing’ former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa now scheduled to return home on 14 August after he had fled in fear of his life, President Ranil ‘Wily Fox’ Wickremasinghe and Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena have set about running the country with an iron hand.
  Their plus point is their ability to coat harsh words with reason while putting forth tough principles and (…)

• Panic-stricken Tories look for a Saviour | LK Sharma

  29 July 2022, by L K Sharma

  by L K Sharma
  Captured Conversations
  The End Is Nigh
  10 Downing Street
  Prime Minister Anthony Boswell: Welcome to the Conservative Core Group’s crucial meeting. Great Britain is on its deathbed. We face an existential crisis.
  Sir Pax Flumox-Lloyd: The communists said that for years about capitalism that marched on relentlessly.
  Prime Minister: This Scepter’d Isle is endangered!
  Sherman Wiseman: We have lived with this fear for long.
  Prime Minister: Didn’t we lose our Empire, (…)

• End of the Good Times for Artistic and Cultural Space in Putin’s Russia | Lola Kantor-Kazovsky

  29 July 2022

  by Lola Kantor-Kazovsky *
  Translated from Russian by Bela Nikitina
  The closure of “good theatres” in Moscow (I use good here as an analogy with “good Russians” —broad-minded & liberal in spirit) is hopeless barbarism, and I understand the shocked state of those of my Moscow friends who feel that they literally “lost their home”. The ‘Rashisty’ – [a mélange of the Russians and the Fascists], among whom are also former intellectuals, feel that it is finally their time to celebrate. (…)