Mainstream Weekly

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  Table of Contents, July 17, 2021

  16 July 2021

  * Which Leaders Are ’Good And True’? | TJS George
  * Tribute: Rabi Dash - A Unique revolutionary | Manoranjan Mohanty
  * A Troubadour and A Revolutionary | Durba Bose
  * Radical Democratic Ideals for the 21st Century | Sanjeeb Mukherjee

• Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, July 17, 2021

  16 July 2021

  Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, July 17, 2021
  The week began with ‘Smart Cities’ of Dharamshala, Chandni Chowk area of Delhi, Gurugram all being hit hard by Monsoon rain. But the worst hit was Dharamshala the famous refuge for Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama in Himachal Pradesh which saw a surprising man made flood. Dharamshala is no stranger to heavy rain, so what was different this time is what happened to the rain water. Some 10 people were reported missing (might be dead), 184 (…)

• Which Leaders Are ’Good And True’? | TJS George

  16 July 2021, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  So they succeeded in getting rid of Stan Swamy. It can be described as a politico-judicial killing. The politicians could not accept his fight for tribal rights and the way his simplicity gave muscle to that fight. The judiciary would not accept that he was fighting even as he was suffering from advanced Parkinson’s. The special court rejected Swamy’s bail application with the remark: "The collective interest of the community would outweigh the right of personal (…)

• Rabi Dash: A Unique revolutionary | Manoranjan Mohanty

  16 July 2021, by Manoranjan Mohanty

  (Rabi Dash, one of the founding members of the CPI-ML who was active in the militant land struggles in Koraput in the late 1960s and early 1970s and spent the last three decades in Kalahandi organizing a handloom cooperative under Sarvodaya auspices died in Cuttack on 11 May 2021 at the age of 80. This is a tribute by a close friend.)
  July 1971, I don’t recall the exact date, but at around 10 pm at night, Rabi Dash reached our Model Town house. During that time, he often reached our (…)

• A Troubadour and A Revolutionary | Durba Bose

  16 July 2021, by Durba Bose

  Author’s note:
  Please note that this piece was written prior to the current uprising in Cuba and the efforts to stifle it by the current Cuban government.
  I stand with the anti-imperialist writers and intellectuals, who denounce the cruel and continued blockade of Cuba by the United States and the repression of the Marxist intellectuals, who raise their voices against Cuba’s current government. I was heartened to learn that the intellectual and activist Frank Garcia Hernandez and his (…)

• Towards Justice: Radical Democratic Ideals for the 21st Century | Sanjeeb Mukherjee

  16 July 2021

  by Sanjeeb Mukherjee*
  The long 20th century, which is flowing into the present, has many lessons to offer as it witnessed world wars, revolutions, national liberation struggles, decolonisation, environmental degradation and violence and human suffering on a global scale. It will, perhaps, be remembered as a century of lost opportunities, of heroic struggles, of colossal failures and suffering; the triumph of global capitalism, unprecedented advances in knowledge and the challenge to the (…)

• A Corporate Melting Pot | Bhupendra Chauhan

  16 July 2021

  by Bhupendra Chauhan
  Working in an Indian factory one gets to hear different languages. A brief stint in the Brown Boveri Corporation in Baden, Switzerland, introduced me to several nationalities in one office. This large multi-national corporation manufactured power generating equipment, traction systems and industrial controls. We three colleagues from BHEL Bangalore were deputed there for training in the summer of 1978. The corporation later got merged with Asea, a Swedish (…)

• PM Modi resets Council of Ministers: social inclusion and loyalty as prime drivers | P S Jayaramu

  16 July 2021, by P S Jayaramu

  by P. S. Jayaramu*
  12th July, 2021
  The much awaited expansion and reshuffle of the Union Council of Ministers took place a few days ago. As is his wont, Prime Minister Modi sprang a few surprises by showing the exit door to six of his senior cabinet colleagues and four Ministers of State, one of whom held independent charge. The ostensible explanation for axing the senior ministers is their poor performance In the evaluation exercises carried out by the Party and the Government. There (…)

• Inter-services rivalry amongst armed forces: why it is bad? | Bhartendu Kumar Singh

  16 July 2021, by Bhartendu Kumar Singh

  Inter-services rivalry amongst armed forces is ubiquitous in most countries and India is not an exception to this competitive politics. Numerical predominance of Army in national defence architecture notwithstanding, modern warfare is mostly about optimising different services towards a joint warfare strategy. Therefore, when the Indian Air Force was recently described as a ‘supporting arm’, it amounted to reassertion of ‘army being the mainstay of modern warfare system’. Such archival (…)

• Language as an Identity Marker: Placing Language Movements in Ethnic Conundrum of South Asia | Akansha Chandra

  16 July 2021

  by Akansha Chandra*
  Language has always been an important identity marker in the domain of Social Sciences. Within the framework of ethnicity, language movements have played a significant role in the politics of identity. The South Asian region especially has been rigged with such movements as the concept of ethnicity started to become more popular with the era of decolonization. People started identifying themselves with their ethnic historicity, and the repression of the language of the (…)