Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Stakhanovism from the 1930s helped create today’s intense corporate workplace culture | Costea & Watt

  30 July 2021

  by Bogdan Costea and Peter Watt
  June 29, 2021
  One summer night in August, 1935, a young Soviet miner named Alexei Stakhanov managed to extract 102 tonnes of coal in a single shift. This was nothing short of extraordinary (according to Soviet planning, the official average for a single shift was seven tonnes).
  Stakhanov shattered this norm by a staggering 1,400%. But the sheer quantity involved was not the whole story. It was Stakhanov’s achievement as an individual that became the most (…)

• Beware UN Food Systems Summit Trojan Horse | Jomo Kwame Sundaram

  30 July 2021

  by Jomo Kwame Sundaram
  KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jul 26 2021 (IPS) - Undoubtedly, the world needs to reform existing food systems to better serve humanity and sustainable development. But the United Nations World Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) must be consistent with UN-led multilateralism.
  For the first time ever, the World Economic Forum (WEF), a partnership of some of the world’s most powerful corporations, is partnering the UN in launching the Summit, now scheduled for September, with its (…)

• Understanding Floods, Living With Them While Reducing Destruction | Bharat Dogra

  30 July 2021, by Bharat Dogra

  India is not alone in experiencing the paradox of more areas becoming exposed to floods even as the expenditure on flood protection goes on increasing. Many countries have experienced this . Clearly we need a review of basic thinking related to flood protection.
  There are some floods which are very highly destructive and/or prolonged. Clearly we need to check such floods. Some of the most destructive floods in recent years have been those caused by embankment breaches and sudden release of (…)

• Relationship of Ecology and Environment - Geographer’s concerns | Kalita & Barman

  30 July 2021

  by K. Kalita and R. Barman *
  It has long been evident that there is a close relationship of human society and its activities with the modern concept of ecology-ecosystem in an area, region or a country or the globe as a whole. In the beginning, the term ecology or its equivalent one, such as oekologie coined by Ernst Haeckel in 1886, ethology and hexicology used respectively by I.G.S Hilaire and S.G. Mivart before Haeckel had their only strong based in biological sciences. Today the term (…)

• Covid-19 Pandemic and the Political: Deficient Political Worldwide | Kunal Kumar Yadav

  30 July 2021

  by Kunal Kumar Yadav *
  Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event in history. For the first time a pandemic has affected the humanity on such a large scale. It has affected the social, political and economic aspects of the human life in equally devastating manner. The pandemic has brought an unprecedented political problem in front of the mankind. Political is basically the articulation of the public events in a democratic manner. The pandemic has affected the Political in a (…)

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  A British View of Colonial India | M R Narayan Swamy

  30 July 2021, by M R Narayan Swamy

  __0__
  Peace, Poverty and Betrayal: A New History of British India
  by Roderick Matthews
  HarperCollins India
  20 June 2021
  Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 440 pages
  ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9354227325 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9354227325
  Peace, Poverty and Betrayal: A New History of British India by Roderick Matthews https://www.amazon.in/dp/9354227325/
  __0__
  If freelance writer Roderick Matthews is to be believed, Indians complain too much about British (mis)rule of the sprawling (…)

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  Book Review: Gandhi’s ingenuously reconstructed autobiography | Suhas Borker

  30 July 2021, by Suhas Borker

  RESTLESS AS MERCURY:
  My Life As a Young Man
  by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Edited by Gopalkrishna Gandhi
  Aleph Book Company | January 2021 | 400 p
  ISBN: 9788194874140
  https://www.alephbookcompany.com __0__
  As I read the preface by Gopalkrishna Gandhi to Restless as Mercury: My Life As A Young Man, I was reminded of what his elder brother and professor of philosophy Ramchandra Gandhi told me 30 years ago. Back in 1991, we were working together to make Jagran aur Gavahi: Tees (…)

• Gulzar saab, / Yusra Khan | Humra Quraishi

  30 July 2021, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS - 28 July 2021
  Come August and its Gulzar saab’s birthday. Born on 18 August 1934 in the Undivided Punjab, he’s going strong. That grace, that attractive-poetic-romantic look to him hasn’t ebbed. He looks a shayar and also converses like a shayar with that gentle strain to his voice.
  There’s something or everything so very different about Gulzar saab, that’s difficult to describe or even pinpoint. Its not just the way he dresses so very elegantly in the white cotton (…)

• Danish Siddiqui’s Question? | Ramanujam Meganathan

  30 July 2021

  You shot for peace live.
  They shot the peace dead.
  Your lens lensed through suffering human.
  Their prudence stands for counting dead human.
  Yet another casualty,
  Yet another peace catalyst quieted.
  Yet another message to enemies.
  Who are the enemies?
  Your lens that clicked blew off many a violent mind.
  It sparkled for solace.
  Oh! Afghans, how long you endure?
  How many you endure?
  The Communist, jehadist, islamist
  The UN, the USA, the NATO
  The religion, the neighbours, the (…)

• A Cup Full of Rebellion | Jeevesh Gupta

  30 July 2021

  A pinch of breeze and few drops of chlorophyll
  A whirlpool of emotion riding on a mint leaf
  Simmering bark of an aging oak smoking anger in disgust
  The oozing droplets of blood from its trunk splash parched lands
  Slowly percolating through the midribs in the ground
  Mother Nature is widowed by those who still vow to keep her elated and green
  Her so called husbands plundered her first
  Young and old, who were fed by her and basked in her glory, shot bullets through her very (…)