Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

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  Table of Contents, Mainstream, Aug 7, 2021

  7 August 2021

  * Covid-19 and the Persisting Socioeconomic Crisis in India | Arun Kumar
  * A status quo-ist ministry takes shape in Karnataka | P S Jayaramu
  * PMs May Come, PMs May Go, But Modiji... | TJS George
  * Book Review: Devaki Jain on Amartya Sen’s Memoirs
  * Athlete Ila Mitra missed the 1940 Olympics, but became a peasant leader | Sohini Chattopadhyay

• Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Aug 7, 2021

  7 August 2021

  Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, August 7, 2021
  People might recall the news from a year ago of how a huge explosive blast in Lebanon virtually demolished the city of Beirut. Had that been a nuclear explosion it may have also killed thousands of people while decimating the city at the same time. A massive accidental blast is one thing but a conscious decision to bomb and destroy on a gigantic scale is a criminal act. August 6, and August 9, 2021 mark the 76th anniversary of the US (…)

• The Significance of a Shadow Cabinet: The Opposition Should Establish It | Anil Nauriya

  7 August 2021, by Anil Nauriya

  by Anil Nauriya The political crisis in India has assumed a serious character. Since 2014 there has been an all-round failure in governance with respect to Public Order and Rule of Law, Public Health, Public Welfare, Social Unity, Economy, External Affairs and Defence. Closely associated with this, there has been an erosion in the independence of most Constitutional institutions not excluding even the Election Commission and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. As I (…)

• Persisting Socio-economic Crisis: COVID-19 Lays Bare the Social Fault Lines | Arun Kumar

  7 August 2021, by Arun Kumar

  (*This article is substantially based on Kumar (2020d) and is appearing in Raza G. and S. Singh (Ed.) (2021). The Second Pulse of the Pandemic: A sudden surge in scientific temper during the Covid-19 crisis. N Delhi: Anhad. Forthcoming.)
  Introduction
  The global battle with the Sars-Cov-2 virus is on for more than 18 months and in spite of vaccination it is continuing. Humankind has not yet got the problem under control. India is witnessing the persistence of the second wave with around (…)

• A statusquoist ministry takes shape in Karnataka | P S Jayaramu

  7 August 2021, by P S Jayaramu

  August 5, 2021
  Though the appointment of the new Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, as the Chief Minister of Karnataka was announced in quick time after the resignation of Yediyurappa, the constitution of the new ministry took a week, with Bommai being made to undertake two visits to meet the party high command. This delay was unnecessary as the new ministers should have been allowed to take up the pressing works arising out of floods in several parts of the state and the increasing covid 19 (…)

• PMs May Come, PMs May Go, But Modiji... | T J S George

  7 August 2021, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  All said and done, Narendra Modiji must be having a grand time. He never meets the press — the only prime minister in the world with that distinction — nonetheless he is all over the papers and television. Terrible things happen in his watch but they do not affect him and he doesn’t really care As Senior Advocate in Delhi, Rajiv Nayar put it, there have been "unaccounted-for deaths, bodies mixed up in hospitals, mass cremations/burials — and the loss of hope." But the (…)

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  Review by Devaki Jain of Amartya Sen’s Home in the world - A memoir

  7 August 2021, by Devaki Jain

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Devaki Jain
  __0__
  Home in the World: A Memoir
  by Amartya Sen
  Imprint; Allen Lane
  Penguin Random House
  July, 2021
  480 pages
  ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1846144868
  ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1846144868
  available via Amazon
  __0__
  In Home in the World, Amartya Sen, a dear friend and contemporary, has achieved the impossible. We are with him in Shantiniketan savouring its unique ambience. Tagore is there, and encourages our brave Amartya to improve his competence in Sanskrit. At (…)

• Athlete Ila Mitra missed the 1940 Olympics, but became an indomitable peasant leader | Sohini Chattopadhyay

  7 August 2021

  by Sohini Chattopadhyay
  July 30, 2021
  Instead of sprinting in the 1940 Olympics, gifted athlete Ila Mitra was jailed and tortured for joining the famous Tebhaga peasant uprising in Bengal. Here is her story of immense courage
  In 1940, when Helsinki was preparing to host the 12th Summer Olympics and Europe was preparing for war, deputy accountant general Nagendranath Sen received news through his colonial administration network that his 15-year-old daughter, Ila, was being considered (…)

• Prashānt Mamatā as Rājdharma | Pradip Baksi

  7 August 2021

  by Pradip Baksi
  “Bā rayat sulh Kun wa’z jang i khasm aiman nishīn / Z’ānki Shāhinshāh i ādil rā rayat lashkar ast.” (“Be at peace with subjects and sit safe from the attacks of foes / Because his subjects are the army of a just Shāhinshāh.”)—Saʿdī Shīrāzī (1258), Golestān, Book I, Story 6, the last 2 lines; quoted in Roy 1832:118.
  1. This is a note about the contemporary importance of prashānt (quiet) mamatā (compassion) as rājdharma (principle for governance). This principle is (…)

• Mamata Banerjee into the Vedanta trap | Sankar Ray

  7 August 2021, by Sankar Ray

  Willy-nilly, the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has walked into the corporate trap of Vedanta Limited (erstwhile Vedanta Resources plc), incorporated in UK, an NRI Anil Agarwal-led group, diversified natural resources company with interests in zinc-lead-silver, Iron ore, steel, copper, aluminum, power, oil and gas and infamous for wanton violation of environmental norms. In 2018, mass protests against Vedanta’s Sterlite Copper subsidiary at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu for causing (…)