Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Implications of the New Labour Codes on the Working Class in India | Kingshuk Sarkar

  17 February 2022, by Kingshuk Sarkar

  Introduction
  The subject of labour reforms has been under debate over the last two decades in India. The dominant narrative is that there are too many labour laws and most of those are quite old and they are adversely affecting India’s employment potential. Liberalization of the economy started happening in 1991. In line with the changing scenario of a liberalizing economy, there was a growing demand to have broad-based labour reforms as part of the second-generation reform from the late (…)

• Exploring the Imperial Connections of “Humanitarianism” | Arup Kumar Sen

  17 February 2022, by Arup Kumar Sen

  In his recent polemical text titled ‘Reflections on Violence, Law and Humanitarianism”, carried in Critical Inquiry (Vol. 41, No. 2, 2015), the eminent anthropologist, Talal Asad has probed the genealogy of “humanitarianism” and located its embeddedness in the discourse of imperialism: “As word, concept, and practice, humanitarianism emerged in the nineteenth century with the consolidation of European nation states, the expansion of European colonial empires and the global development of (…)

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  Hijab & Saffron scarves - Stop infecting college campuses with the communal poison: IMSD

  17 February 2022

  [The below statement by Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy signed by some 150 concerned citizens was released on February 11, 2022] Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD)
  PRESS STATEMENT
  Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) strongly condemns the attempt by Hindutva forces and the BJP government of Karnataka to engulf college and school campuses in the already raging communal fire in the state.
  The issue of whether Muslim girls should or should not be permitted to wear (…)

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  Concern Over Fear of Ukraine Russia conflict - Press Note by Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) Fe, 14, 2022

  17 February 2022

  Date: 14.02.2022
  Doctors call for resolution of conflict between Russia and Ukraine
  Any escalation would lead to unprecedented humanitarian crisis - IDPD
  Dear Madam/sir,
  Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) has expressed grave concern at the tension between Russia and Ukraine which is continuously raising the fear of a war between the two countries. ‘As medical doctors we are much concerned about the humanitarian crisis which may ensue due to war between the two countries (…)

• Short extract from When Was Modernism? | Raymond Williams (1987)

  17 February 2022

  Here, published for the first time, is an extract from the renowned socialist cultural theorist Raymond Williams’s famous ‘When Was Modernism?’ lecture, delivered at the University of Bristol in March 1987, and taken from the newly published Culture and Politics: Class, Writing, Socialism – the first Williams book for more than three decades to include new material.
  On the centenary of Raymond Williams’s birth, we’re delighted to publish an exclusive extract from his renowned lecture ‘When (…)

• 100 Years of USSR: USSR and nation formation in Asia | Anil Rajimwale

  17 February 2022, by Anil Rajimwale

  This year the world is celebrating hundred years of the formation of USSR or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The USSR left a deep impact on world history, including on Asia and on nation-formation here. The rise and dissolution of the USSR has serious lessons for the world history, for democracy and socialism in the 21st century. The word ‘soviet’ has a rich history, which shaped the history of Russian revolution.
  Emergence of Soviets in Russian Revolution, 1905
  Soviets have a long (…)

• As the US pushes for war in Eurasia, we must remember Romesh Chandra | Nandita Chaturvedi

  17 February 2022

  by Nandita Chaturvedi *
  “An old world is dying, and a new one, kicking in the belly of its mother, time, announces that it is ready to be born. This birth will not be easy, and many of us are doomed to discover that we are exceedingly clumsy midwives. No matter, so long as we accept that our responsibility is to the newborn: the acceptance of responsibility contains the key to the necessarily evolving skill.”—James Baldwin, No Name in the Street
  For the first time since the second world (…)

• Book Review: A Pioneering Study on Tamil Migration | M R Narayan Swamy

  17 February 2022, by M R Narayan Swamy

  Tamil Migrants: A Demographic, Social and Economic Analysis by S. Irudaya Rajan, Bernard D’Sami; Samuel Asir Raj, P. Sivakumar
  Orient BlackSwan 2021 Pages: 312; Price: Rs 1,095 ISBN: 9789354421266
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  From the time of the imperial Cholas, Tamils have been migrating to distant shores for reasons of trade. Their destinations included Ceylon, Burma, Malaya, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. British colonial rule led to more migration, this time as men and women from the poorest (…)

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  Kirschenbaum on Oleksa Drachewych, Ian McKay, eds. Left Transnationalism

  17 February 2022

  Reviewed by Lisa Kirschenbaum *
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  Left Transnationalism: The Communist International and the National, Colonial, and Racial Questions
  Oleksa Drachewych, Ian McKay, eds.
  Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press
  2020. 448 pp. $37.95 (paper)
  ISBN 978-0-7735-5873-1.
  Published on H-Diplo (November, 2020)
  In 2017, centennial reevaluations of the October Revolution often emphasized the event’s lasting global impacts.[1] Left Transnationalism, published in 2019, coincides with (…)

• Biden dials back belligerence toward Russia | M K Bhadrakumar

  17 February 2022, by M K Bhadrakumar

  Feb. 13, 2022
  The White House readout of US President Joe Biden’s conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday conveys the impression that its leitmotif was Washington’s threat of sanctions against Russia if it attacked Ukraine. But it is a hackneyed message that wouldn’t have taken more than a minute or two to convey. Yet, the conversation lasted “a bit over an hour.”
  The Kremlin readout is still to be released, but Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov gave a briefing to the (…)