Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Alternative to Narendra Modi: Is Mamata Banerjee the answer? | K N Ninan

  11 March 2022

  by K N Ninan *
  While Indians await the results of the ongoing assembly elections to gauge which way the wind is blowing in the country, either for or against the ruling BJP, both BJP and opposition leaders have started manoeuvring in preparation for the 2024 general elections in the country. While the Modi government talks of ‘Amrit Kaal’, opposition leaders such as Mamata Banerjee and K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) have taken the initiative to form an anti-BJP front to take on the ruling BJP (…)

• Significant Gains Achieved After Long Struggle by Construction Workers Are Threatened Now | Bharat Dogra

  11 March 2022, by Bharat Dogra

  Very significant gains were achieved by construction workers of India in the form of two laws enacted in 1996 for their social security and welfare. Then for over two decades another phase of struggle had to continue for their implementation in the right spirit. By the year 2018 again there were significant successes in the form of decisions of Supreme Court and High Courts for proper implementation. Just when it appeared that the promising laws and the significant gains they could bring to (…)

• Assembly Elections: Missing NEP in the Debate | Prem Singh

  11 March 2022, by Prem Singh

  The assembly elections of five, which lasted for about a month, are going to end. Only last phase of the elections is left in Uttar Pradesh to be held on March 7. Much of the debate during the elections was lost to accusations and counter-accusations between the parties and leaders. In the debate on election issues that appeared in newspapers, magazines, online, social media and TV channels, no discussions were heard on the New Education Policy (NEP). I personally inquired and also asked (…)

• Understanding the Phenomenon of ‘Criminal Politicians’ in Uttar Pradesh Elections | Amitanshu Verma

  11 March 2022

  by Amitanshu Verma *
  Abstract
  In the ongoing Uttar Pradesh assembly elections the focus is yet again on ‘criminal politicians.’ Almost every other speech teems with invocation of words like mafia, bahubali and tamancha-wadi. As the incumbent BJP goes to polls it highlights controlling the mafia politicians, as one of its prime achievements in the last five years. This essay provides a brief historical sketch of the rise of the figure of ‘criminal politician’ and the discourse of (…)

• The Return of Mandal Rhetorics in UP Politics | Supriy Ranjan and Pankaj Kumar

  11 March 2022

  by Supriy Ranjan and Pankaj Kumar *
  Mandal politics signified a paradigmatic shift in Indian politics. It completely changed the physicality as well as the language of doing politics. The Parliament and state assemblies, for the first time, mirrored cleavages and antagonisms of Indian society. It is in this sense that Mandal politics signified the deepening of democracy in India. While much analysis has focused on the representational democratisation that this politics brought in. The (…)

• Thanatos Triumphant | Mike Davis (NLR - Sidecar)

  11 March 2022

  07 March 2022
  by Mike Davis
  Does hegemony require a grand design? In a world where a thousand gilded oligarchs, billionaire sheiks, and Silicon deities rule the human future, we should not be surprised to discover that greed breeds reptilian minds. What I find most remarkable about these strange days ­– as thermobaric bombs melt shopping malls and fires rage in nuclear reactors – is the inability of our supermen to validate their power in any plausible narrative of the near future.
  By (…)

• The 2022 War in Ukraine - Interview with Oksana Dutchak

  11 March 2022

  5 Mar 2022
  Oksana Dutchak is a researcher based in Ukraine and an activist of E.A.S.T. – Essential Autonomous Struggles Transnational. She tells about the current ever-changing situation in Ukraine and local attempts of self-organization to cope with the war. The question of how to create a transnational politics of peace has no easy answer. Continuing to mobilize and communicate across the borders is crucial but it should go hand in hand with radically rethinking the transnational itself. (…)

• Who wants war? | SG Vombatkere

  11 March 2022, by S G Vombatkere

  War and the Deep State
  Russia’s military attack on Ukraine starting 24 February 2022, is war. Whether or not countries are actually involved in war, war is always justified by one or more parties to the conflict, and condemned as unjustified by one or more parties.
  Both sides of the conflict and opinion have their arguments and “facts”, which are easily manufactured using fake news and deep-fake videos. Thus, long before the first physical casualty in fighting, the first casualty in war (…)

• Stand with Ukrainians and compel Russia to stop this war | Sandeep Pandey

  11 March 2022, by Sandeep Pandey

  There are two narratives about the Russia-Ukraine war in circulation. One is projecting invading Russia as the villain and demanding immediate cessation of hostilities. Second is holding United States foreign policy responsible for this which even after the cold war got over in 1991 was unnecessarily trying to provoke Russia by trying to expand North Atlantic Treaty Organisation making the new states which emerged from Union of Soviet Socialist Republic as its members. Russia felt insecure (…)

• Towards a Creative Merger with Rural Children: A Pedagogic Experiment | Avijit Pathak

  11 March 2022, by Avijit Pathak

  As a teacher, I have engaged primarily with university students. Yet, I have always felt that my participation in what we regard as ‘higher education’ should not be separated from school education. I can’t see myself as just a university intellectual—burdened with a heavy baggage of ‘knowledge’ and ‘research’, and separated from children, or the way they grow up as learners in families and schools. There are three reasons for my intense urge to engage with young children. First, I believe (…)