Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Gandhi, secularism, reason and faith | Anil Nauriya

  5 March 2022, by Anil Nauriya

  Although Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) derived strength from a sense of faith, he supported the idea of a secular state. And while he did not a priori exclude or reject faith, he stood committed to apply the test of reason even to religious scriptures. This article is concerned with how Gandhi understood and reconciled these various concepts. The secular nature of the state — that is, a religiously neutral state as postulated in India by the resolution adopted by the Indian National Congress (…)

• An open letter to secular Muslim friends in India | Marieme Helie Lucas

  5 March 2022, by Marieme Helie Lucas

  The defense of victims of one (majority) religious fundamentalist extreme right should not lead to supporting another (be it minority) one.
  by Marieme Helie Lucas 18 Feb 2022
  Dear friends,
  I am following closely the events in Karnataka university/colleges and the controversy about female students wearing various head covering in class – whether hijab, burqa, etc...
  Let me first tell you that I realize everyday how lucky I am to be a citizen of a virtually 100% “Muslim” country (…)

• Esoteric neutrinos and People’s concerns: The Indian Neutrino Observatory | S.G.Vombatkere

  5 March 2022, by S G Vombatkere

  Tamil Nadu has reportedly made clear to the Supreme Court that it does not want the Indian Neutrino Observatory (INO) to be set up in a sensitive ecological zone in the Western Ghats at great cost to wildlife, biodiversity, and by ignoring the local opposition and public agitations to the project.
  Neutrinos are esoteric
  Neutrinos, first postulated in 1930 by Wolfgang Pauli, are naturally occurring elementary particles without electric charge, emanating mostly from the Sun and traveling (…)

• 

  Editors Guild Statement about arrest of journalist from news site Janjwar, by Uttarakhand Police

  5 March 2022

  The Editors Guild of India
  PRESS STATEMENT
  March 3rd, 2022
  The Editors Guild of India is deeply disturbed by the arrest of Kishore Ram, a journalist working for the news portal Janjwar, by the Uttarakhand Police on February 24, 2022 from Pithoragadh.
  Ram has been arrested under section 153-A of the Indian Penal Code, on charges of promoting enmity between castes. This is deeply concerning as Ram has been reporting on issues pertaining to marginalised classes and lower castes for a (…)

• Is the Left, Right? | Kobad Ghandy

  5 March 2022, by Kobad Ghandy

  If we seek to change society the starting point is to have a correct assessment of the current situation at any given time, as also the direction of its likely development. It is important to predict the future, to the extent possible, as only then one can adopt correct tactics well in advance. Without such clarity one would continue beating around the bush, shooting blindly in the dark, being satisfied with small/petty organisational gains, yet not moving one step forward in the direction (…)

• Assault on the Idea of Education | Sandeep Pandey

  5 March 2022, by Sandeep Pandey

  The Sangh Parivar claims to be a cultural organization. Core supporters of its ideology are upper caste and/or the educated elite. Quite naturally it gives importance to education. It is opposed to caste based reservation in the name of honouring merit. The irony is among the top leadership of Sangh Parivar or it affiliate organisations there are hardly any intelligent people. Both the Atal Behari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi governments were bereft of people, except the ones who could be (…)

• Review: Story of the Telangana Region - in the Republic of India | Sreerupa Saha

  5 March 2022

  Review by Sreerupa Saha*
  __0__
  The Fall and Rise of Telangana
  by Gautam Pingle
  Orient Black Swan, India
  2014
  pp xvii+ 326
  Paperback
  Rs. 395
  __0__
  The demand for separate statehood soaked in the spirit of subnationalism had a number of eruptive nodes in Indian federal polity, of which the demand for a separate Telangana state carved out from Andhra Pradesh remained active for the longest period in the history of independent India with a successful fulfillment of the (…)

• Clevenger’s Review of Levett, G, ed., Sport in History Podcast

  5 March 2022

  Reviewed by Samuel Clevenger (Towson University)
  __0__ Sport in History Podcast. United Kingdom:
  British Society of Sports History, 2020-21
  by Geoff Levett, ed.
  Podcast, https://www.sportinhistory.org/categories/podcast __0__ Published on H-Podcast (February, 2022)
  Since 2020, the British Society for Sports History (BSSH), self-described as the United Kingdom’s “leading scholarly society for the history of sport,” has produced a podcast titled Sport in History Podcast. As of this (…)

• Birthday | Ajit Das

  5 March 2022

  BIRTHDAY
  What’s special about birthday?
  When you came to the world,
  you just filled in a vacancy,
  creating another in the future
  to be filled when you’ll depart.
  It’s a remembrance that ends
  with the outer glitter fading.
  Then life moves on as usual,
  staying close to the route,
  wary of charting unknown paths.
  You remain satisfied, engrossed
  in small joy, but feel heartbroken,
  when small sorrow befalls you.
  Sailing on wavelets of a placid sea,
  you navigate to another shore. (…)

• 

  Video: Asli Azaadi (True Freedom) a documentary film on women freedom fighters from India | Sagari Chhabra

  5 March 2022

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWrctt5xwP4
  Note from The director:
  I am delighted to share, ’ Asli Azaadi’ - True Freedom ( 1999, 48 mins. English commentary & subtitles) on India’s women freedom fighters.
  Watch the amazing contribution of the women who were members of the Rani of Jhansi regiment - one of the earliest all-woman military regiments of the world - the brainchild of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Meet the unknown women who worked with or were influenced by Mahatma (…)