Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Letter to the readers, Mainstream, Jan 22, 2022

  21 January 2022

  Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, January 22, 2022
  This coming January 26 will mark the 73rd anniversary of India’s Republic Day. This is a day of great significance when our newly independent country adopted its new constitution. Since the 1950s a republic day parade is held in the national capital; It has been a stately event of pomp and show with a military parade and also with tableau’s representing different regions and a diverse cultural heritage of India. This year there has been a (…)

• Public Sector in India Faces a Three-Sided Assault | Arun Kumar

  21 January 2022, by Arun Kumar

  Paper Written for the AITUC Conference in Hyderabad, January 15, 2022.
  The government is accelerating the process of privatizing the public sector under one pretext or the other. This process was set in motion in 1991 with the new economic policies (NEP) but now using the excuse of dealing with the pandemic and sensing that the opposition is subdued since protest is not easy, the government has speeded up the process. It is talking of disinvestment, monetization of assets and strategic (…)

• The Lamp | S.G.Vombatkere

  21 January 2022, by S G Vombatkere

  Our PM has spoken. To quote him: "We have to light the lamp of responsibilities and obligation inside the heart of every citizen of the country. Then only the country will reach new heights", and “... society should stand on the foundations of equality and social justice”.
  To put it in context, PM also reportedly spoke words to the effect that, in the last 75 years since Independence, we have only talked about our rights, and wasted time in struggling and fighting for our rights, but that (…)

• Foundations of Indian Republic De-based: The Case of Federalism | D Raja

  21 January 2022, by D Raja

  by D Raja *
  We have entered the 72nd year of our Constitution’s coming into force declaring India a Sovereign Democratic Republic. This is also the 75th year of gaining independence from the British colonialism. The government of the day is observing it as ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’. The celebrations are already mired in controversy as the ruling regime is trying to further its communal agenda by falsifying and distorting history.
  The RSS and its outfits, which had no role in the freedom (…)

• Veil is anti-Quran | S. Faizi

  21 January 2022, by S Faizi

  As Muslims are facing increased threat in several countries, like the unending public lynching and the recent open call for genocide by the Hindutwa militia in India, some sections of them are shrinking into their shells. Hijab or veil is one expression of this shrinking phenomena. This uniform, often black, lose covering over one’s dress, known as purdah in south Asia and hijab or abaya in west Asia, has been spreading fast among Muslim women in the recent years. Even in places like Kerala- (…)

• Telangana Rastra Samiti and Changing Political Dynamics in Telangana State | Karli Srinivasulu

  21 January 2022, by Karli Srinivasulu

  With the national BJP leadership looking towards the south for political support and the resultant active mode the state BJP demonstrating itself to be in through its aggressive mobilization we find the prospect of sufficient political heat in the state of Telangana. With the position of the BJP becoming precarious in the north in the aftermath of the farmers movement there seems to a strategy of sorts to focus on the south. The BJP has been successful so far only in Karnataka to consolidate (…)

• A Welcome Book Of Assertive History | T J S George

  21 January 2022, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  A remarkable anthology has come out. It is misleadingly titled as "Two hundred years of English prose." The main title of the book is just as erroneous: "The Book of Indian Essays."
  This book is more than just "English prose" and "Indian essays." It is an assertive history of India, outlined by some of the best thinkers of our time — from Aubrey Menen and G. V. Desani to Santha Rama Rau and Nissim Ezekiel. A statement in the blurb puts it in perspective: "A (…)

• Pandit Birju Maharaj Was Indeed The Maharaja of Kathak! | Humra Quraishi

  21 January 2022, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  19 January 2022
  Earlier this week, Delhi-based Khudai Khidmatgars concluded their five days fast against the ongoing climate of hate and violence. Activists detailed that Mahatma Gandhi’s granddaughter, 87 year old Tara Gandhi Bhattacharjee, carried with her home-cooked khichdi and kheer and also offered them fruit juice to end their fast. “She’d emotionally recalled Mahatma Gandhi last fast and said every day she used to reach Birla Bhavan directly from school...she said that (…)

• Tagore’s Version of Atmanirvar and Atmashakti | Sreedeep

  21 January 2022

  by Sreedeep *
  “Nationalism is a great menace...It is my conviction that my countrymen will truly gain their India by fighting against the education which teaches them that a country is greater than the ideals of humanity.”
  Tagore’s unrepentant disregard for nationalism was apparent, unambiguous, and against the grain of nineteenth-century nationalist thought. Tagore was not only dismissive of nationalism, but he also advocated a humanitarian cause. The rationale that drove his swadeshi (…)

• Revolution, Law and Self-Determination | Shubham Sharma

  21 January 2022

  In the first instance, the dyad of revolution and law appears to be like oil and water, un-mixable, unpalatable, and unhistorical. Revolution by its very definition means annihilation of the existing order of things. This includes archaic social institutions and the political structure buttressed by the existing laws. And the law, on the other hand, is nothing but a set of codified strictures that sanctions legitimacy to any social property relations in place. After all, all the revolutions (…)