Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• State of the Rule of Law in Assam: A Real-Life Experience of an ordinary citizen | Sarma and Sunder

  28 December 2021

  by Atul Sarma and Shyam Sunder *
  It is a mere cliché that the Rule of Law is crucially important for efficient functioning of a market economy since timely disposal of property disputes and enforcement of contract form the core of a market economy. This has assumed far greater importance in the context of Assam government’s resolve to take the state to the fifth place among the Indian states by 2026-27.
  The United Nations defines the rule of law as “a principle of governance in which all (…)

• The Irresistible Bell Hooks: A Tribute | Avijit Pathak

  28 December 2021, by Avijit Pathak

  To live fully we would need to let go of our fear of dying. That fear can be addressed by the love of living. bell hooks
  Even though death is normal and inevitable, it is not easy for me to acknowledge that bell hooks is no more amongst us. I know that professional academicians and scholars are trained to restrain their emotions, and even when a colleague dies, they merely issue formal condolence messages, and write yet another scholarly paper on the academic achievements of their late (…)

• Assessing General Bipin Rawat - a modern re-incarnation of Bheema ? | Sumanta Banerjee

  28 December 2021, by Sumanta Banerjee

  I have been reading the obituaries on, and reminiscences about, India’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Bipin Rawat (who along with his wife and several military personnel, was killed in a helicopter crash on December 7). His life and tragic end remind me of the fate of the Indian mythical hero Bheema, the second of the Pandava brothers, whose exploits are described in the epic Mahabharata.
  Bheema is described as ’kanchan-barna, brishash-skandha, unnata-baksha’ (…)

• An Archeology of Development | Debal Deb

  28 December 2021

  The current notion of development was born of the nineteenth century philosophical ideas of evolutionary progress, combined with the Ernst Haeckel’s ontological development metaphor. Soon after its origins, the notion of development percolated into theories of social evolution current before the Darwinian evolutionary theory was published. The social theorists of the nineteenth century reproduced current prejudices about social evolution with an aura of scientific authority, by allusion to (…)

• Dear PM Modi, Aurangzeb Rule Was Also the Rule of Hindu High Castes! | Shamsul Islam

  28 December 2021, by Shamsul Islam

  Narendra Modi, a senior swayamsevak (member) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, long back in 2013 when he occupied the office of chief minister of Gujarat, declared himself to be a ‘Hindu nationalist’
  For PM, the story of repression and persecution by Aurangzeb, a Mughal king is not the story of some individual tyrant ruler but a bigoted Muslim who hated Hindus and Hinduism. Aurangzeb personified all Muslims of India and the religion Islam. Unfortunately our PM as a Hindutva bigot (…)

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  Book Review: A Classic on Bangladesh Liberation War | M R Narayan Swamy

  28 December 2021, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
  __0__
  Bangladesh War: Report from Ground Zero
  Manas Ghosh
  Niyogi Books
  Pages: 220; Price: Rs 695
  __0__
  Pakistan’s military carried out a stinking genocide in East Pakistan in 1971, with the Chinese becoming accomplices in the mass murder, rape and torture. But terrible crimes were committed by the Nixon-Kissinger administration. That they actively came out against the Bengalis of East Pakistan and India is known. Former journalist Manas Ghosh reveals that the US (…)

• New Year | Ajit Das

  28 December 2021

  ‘The Year’s doors open
  like those of language
  towards the unknown’.
  — ‘January First’ by Octavio Paz
  New Year
  And, once again, we sketch a roadmap
  to enter the unknown, drawing
  on the balance sheet of the year
  fading into history at midnight stroke.
  What is this balance sheet like?
  Is it the survival of the ‘fittest’,
  shriveled from within
  by an abysmal lack of values?
  Or are ideals, virtues, aesthetic qualities,
  relegated to the periphery, now
  breaking (…)

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  A cartoonists tribute to Desmund Tutu | Jayaraj Vellur

  28 December 2021
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  Cartoon: Nine to five Jabs, Not Jobs | Nala Ponnappa

  28 December 2021
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  Photo: La Martinere College Lucknow (1900)

  28 December 2021