Mainstream Weekly

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• Why There is Compelling Need for Comprehensive Inquiry Into Uttar Pradesh Panchayati Raj Elections | Bharat Dogra

  16 July 2021, by Bharat Dogra

  While violence, intimidation and other more obvious aspects of irregularities which marred the recently held three-month long Panchayati Raj (PR) elections in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) are now widely known, there is still urgent need for a more formal and detailed inquiry into various worrying aspects of these elections. There are four obvious reasons for this.
  Firstly, the more obvious violence and intimidation, as captured on videos, were only one part of the (…)

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  D R Chaudhry - an organic socialist intellectual of the Haryana peasantry | Pritam Singh

  16 July 2021

  by Pritam Singh*
  Daulat Ram Chaudhry (1935-2021) — a teacher, public intellectual and social activist — spent his whole life articulating progressive ideas and building socially transformative organisational structures and movements in Haryana. This illustrious life came to an end on June 2 due to health complications caused by Covid-19. He breathed his last at Rohtak in his room with all his family by his side.
  He was born in a farming family in the village of Chautala in Haryana and (…)

• Obituary: Vir K. Chopra | Ranbir Singh

  16 July 2021, by Ranbir Singh

  by Prof. Ranbir Singh Remembering a Multifaceted Personality
  The demise of Vir K. Chopra is a great loss for the academic fraternity and Bollywood. After getting a first class first masters degree in Economics from Kashmir University Srinagar he had joined the prestigious Tata Consultation Service and has served on very important positions in hotel management. Thereafter he had obtained PhD degree in Political Science from London School of (…)

• Master Plan of Delhi 2041 & Environment | Jeevesh Gupta

  16 July 2021

  by Jeevesh Gupta*
  The Great Greek philosopher, Socrates, once said, “By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities”.
  While the DDA has been opaque about sharing the promised versus achieved status for previous master plans, the new master plan which comes up every 20 years is nothing but old wine in a new bottle!
  The subject of Environment has managed to shift from chapter 9 (page 96) of Master Plan of Delhi (MPD) (…)

• Business of Othering | Humra Quraishi

  16 July 2021, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS 14 July 2021
  With more and more communal characters on the prowl, can we declare communalism, or to put it along the desi strain ‘communal-pan’, as a full-fledged disease or disorder of the day! Yes, it ought to be termed and notified as a disease or disorder, which is growing and spreading out in our country, un-checked and un-controlled! Today the Right-Wing brigades and Fascist lobbies are expanding and with that out to destroy structures, human and otherwise.
  In these recent (…)

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  An Ambassador India Doesn’t Remember | M R Narayan Swamy

  16 July 2021, by M R Narayan Swamy

  A Forgotten Ambassador in Cairo:
  The Life and Times of Syud Hossain
  by N.S. Vinodh
  Simon & Schuster India (December 29, 2020) | ISBN13: 9788194752028 Pages: 378; Price: Rs 799
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  He was an outstanding journalist whose writings and mesmerizing oratory the Raj detested; he went into self-imposed life in the West after eloping with a sister of Jawaharlal Nehru who later became Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit; he kept the torch of Indian nationalism flying in England and the US; he was (…)

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  Padma Bridge in Bangladesh without World Bank stakes | Mizanur Rahman

  16 July 2021

  Review by Mizanur Rahman
  People build bridges to connect both sides; ironically, the politics of financing behind the Padma Bridge was a divide. Our national interests and social culture used to be promoted by intellectual groups, media and academic institutions. Their roles are fading away, and the global multinational organisations made them powerless, subservient and redundant. Moreover, some self-serving Bangladeshis- mostly in high chairs- do not care about protecting the country’s (…)

• Fire | Badri Raina

  16 July 2021, by Badri Raina

  Fire, fire, everywhere,
  As far as the eye can span;
  Fire across the continents,
  Fire in the mind of man.
  The oceans rise, the waters fall,
  Yet fire defeats deluge;
  Governance is a fireball,
  Fire inflames the stooge.
  Centuries of progression
  From animal to reason
  Now burn at the tyrant’s stake
  As treachery and treason.
  Bullets lurk in syllables,
  Wrapped in the fire of hate;
  New commandments are etched in fire
  Of the infernal state.
  Fire fears the temperate
  As lies fear (…)

• South Africa: KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng are burning - We need to build a just peace | Abahlali baseMjondolo

  16 July 2021

  [South African military has been deployed on a large scale (25 thousand troops) as the former President Jacob Zuma was jailed towards the end of the first week of July 2021 and unrest and looting spread in various towns. Zuma who was President till 2018, faces charges of fraud, racketeering and money laundering in multiple cases and one the most prominent cases involves the three Gupta Brothers from Delhi who ran a business empire that indulged in state capture; ]
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  South (…)

• For Nuclear Disarmament, the Long Run Is Here | Andrew Lichterman

  16 July 2021

  by Andrew Lichterman
  July 6, 2021
  Twenty-five years ago this month, the International Court of Justice issued its Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat and Use of Nuclear Weapons. In a closely divided ruling, the Court found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would "generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law." In the same divided ruling, however, the Court found (…)