Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• A Plea for Liberal Education | Avijit Pathak

  3 September 2021, by Avijit Pathak

  by Avijit Pathak
  To begin with, let me make it clear. What I am going to write is not something bookish—yet another soulless academic exercise. Instead, my words emanate from the authenticity of my experience: the entire process of self-churning that I pass through as a learner, a teacher or a wanderer. Yes, I know that education, as social anthropologists are fond of saying, is a process of transmission of the entire social heritage— its traditions, symbols and knowledges— from one (…)

• J.P. Naik and The Art of The Educational Revolution | Murzban Jal

  3 September 2021

  by Murzban Jal
  In the era where one form of elites is opposed to another, where liberalism is not only opposed to conservatism, but where the former claims to confront conservatism and authoritarianism and then claims to solve all problems of the world from wars and hunger to the Taliban, it is necessary to recall what revolution and the art of revolution means. And since revolutions do not spring from the air, but occur in the manner that Lenin had pointed out in his What is to be Done?, (…)

• Pandemic, Knowledge and Society | Banhi Baran Ghosh

  3 September 2021

  by Banhi Baran Ghosh*
  Abstract
  Last one year, plunged into disarray and bewilderment, has caused great upheavals and rampages in the society. One way of confronting this is to embark upon how we do acquire a kind of knowledge that would guide us through this untrammeled rush of so many odds to the lasting abode. This article makes an attempt to articulate the rationality of a kind of knowledge that would, in all probability, embolden the society in pious courses to develop a persuasive (…)

• Why I Am Not Jealous of Ambani | T J S George

  3 September 2021, by T J S George

  In the normal course of things, people feel jealous of Mukesh Ambani for the phenomenal wealth he commands. I feel sorry for him. What is the use of wealth if it restricts your freedoms? He has more money than I have, but less freedom. I can have fun driving around in my car, continuously wondering about the old gear civilisation and today’s automatic culture. Ambani has a fleet of cars, but enjoying them is something else. You can enjoy a car, but you cannot enjoy an armoured vehicle, (…)

• Migrant Labour and the Pandemic: Domination and Resistance | Arup Kumar Sen

  3 September 2021

  In summarizing the devastating impact of the two World Wars, Hannah Arendt wrote in 1950: “Never has our future been more unpredictable...”. She also explained her reading of the post-war world: “Under the most diverse conditions and disparate circumstances, we watch the development of the same phenomena — homelessness on an unprecedented scale, rootlessness to an unprecedented depth”. (Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Preface to the first edition, 1951)
  During the seven (…)

• The Shudra Kings and Brahmins: A mirror image of history | Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

  3 September 2021, by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd

  But for the accidental reading of Shahu Maharaj’s letter to the retired Governor of Bombay presidency, Lord Sydenham, written in 1918, I would not have thought of writing this essay. In my life time experience of writing about the Brahmin-Bania power in contemporary times at the expense of life threats and cases in various levels of courts the Dwija pundits tried to dismiss my arguments about the Brahmin-Bania power over the society and state in post-independence times and in the (…)

• Socialism and the Human Individual In Marx’s Work | Paresh Chattopadhyay

  3 September 2021

  by Paresh Chattopadhyay
  Today there is a curious convergence of views between the Right and the dominant Left on the meaning of socialism. Put more concretely, for both the Right and the dominant Left socialism refers to the system which came into being with the conquest of political power by the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917, and signifies a society governed by a single political party — basically the communist party — and where means of production are owned predominantly by the state, and (…)

• Impact of Lockdown Measures taken During Covid 19 Pandemic on the Livelihood of Ragpickers: A Case Study in Surat | Vimal Trivedi

  3 September 2021

  by Vimal Trivedi*
  Abstract
  In this research paper, I tried to explore the impact of lockdown measures imposed during the Covid pandemic on the less privileged rag pickers’ community in Surat city. The survey indicates that lockdown measures raised many questions particularly on the response system to ensure ration for the rag pickers. The survey conducted between November 2020 and January 2021 revealed that rag pickers were not in a position to access any relief measures during the (…)

• 

  A Gripping Autopsy of Japan | M R Narayan Swamy

  3 September 2021, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
  __0__ ’Orienting: An Indian in Japan’ by Pallavi Aiyar
  HarperCollins India https://harpercollins.co.in/product/orienting/ 2021 Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages ₹ 499.00 ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9354227643 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9354227646
  __0__
  Life in Japan can be stranger than fiction.
  Indian journalist and author Pallavi Aiyar realized this during a four-year stay in Japan as she probed the inscrutable Japanese and their way of life, discovering in the process why people in the (…)

• 20 years After 9/11, Many Questions Remain Unanswered | Bharat Dogra

  3 September 2021, by Bharat Dogra

  The 9/11 terrorist attack in the USA was the most horrible and destructive terrorist attack and was mounted against the most powerful and resourceful country with the most extensive intelligence system and highest media concentration. Hence it is highly surprising that it has been investigated in detail time and again, officially as well in numerous independent efforts. Despite this, as we come close to the 20th anniversary of this tragedy, many unanswered or inadequately answered questions (…)