Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, May 1, 2021

  1 May 2021

  Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, May 1, 2021
  A grim future stares at India at it battles against a ferocious second wave of Covid-19. A staggering 402,110 new cases of Covid-19 have been reported for April 30. Official data on total number of infections in the country is fast approaching 20 million.
  Health facilities in different parts of the country are caught in a storm and a shortage of oxygen, of beds and personnel who are trained to handle a large-scale medical emergency, and (…)

• Do we really need a separate national policy for migrant workers? | Kingshuk Sarkar

  1 May 2021

  by Kingshuk Sarkar*
  As Covid pandemic intensifies, possibility of reverse distress migration of informal workers has again become an imminent apprehension. The question is whether we can avoid tragic circumstances this time around. A draft national policy on migrant workers is in public domain and is being discussed. The basic issue of entitlement of a worker needs to be addressed rather than the migrant identity alone.
  The second wave of Covid is hitting the country hard with number of (…)

• A Bigger Crisis Lurking Below The Surface - Vaccination Sidesteps Most Vulnerable Migrant Labour | Harihar Swarup

  1 May 2021

  by Harihar Swarup
  (India Press Agency, April 24, 2021) As a preventive measure against the Covid 19 in India, the Indian government imposed a nationwide 21-day lockdown on March 23, 2020, restricting the movement of its entire population of 1.38 billion. The nationwide lockdown continued until May 3, after which it was extended with conditional relaxations until May 31. The economy slowly started reverting with Unlock 1.0 being announced on June 1. Today, almost a year later, COVID-19 (…)

• Chamoli and climate change | S.G.Vombatkere

  1 May 2021, by S G Vombatkere

  Chamoli
  April 23, 2021. Uttarakhand’s Chamoli District suffered flash flood yet again. The previous one was on February 7, 2021. Both took sudden and huge toll of human and animal life and economic loss, including destroying infrastructure of dams and roads. Both occurred because of avalanches possibly triggered by glacier-dam burst.
  This writer argues that the avalanches were both the cause and the effect of global warming (GW). Cause: The loss of natural forest cover through (…)

• Post-American Afghanistan through looking glass | MK Bhadrakumar

  1 May 2021, by M K Bhadrakumar

  April 29, 2021
  Ex-CIA officer Bruce Riedel at Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, whose familiarity with Afghanistan is never in doubt, has held a looking glass to figure out the future course of events even as the US troop withdrawal commences.
  History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. Riedel sees in the haziness old familiar shapes appearing — the erstwhile Northern Alliance warlords. And he invokes the fate of the communist regime led by Dr. Najibullah after the Soviet withdrawal in (…)

• LDF and Kerala elections 2021 | P Radhakrishnan

  1 May 2021

  by Radhakrishnan Puthenveetil*
  Election to the Kerala assembly was held on April 6. Its outcome is expected to be in stark contrast to that of the 2019 Lok Sabha election which was an unholy alliance for unruly politicking by the BJP and the Congress against the backdrop of the Supreme Court judgment of 28 September 2018 on entry of women to the Sabarimala Ayyappan temple.
  The judgment of a five-member constitution bench headed by the chief justice of India, Dipak Misra, in a 4-1 (…)

• The Assam Assembly Election 2021: on the Verge of a Political Quandary | Nurul Hassan

  1 May 2021, by Nurul Hassan

  by Nurul Hassan
  Assam is considered as one of the Congress-ruled states of India. Although Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) had ruled Assam for two terms after the historic Assam Movement (1979-85), but Congress was a close competitor at that time. However, in 2014, the Modi wave propelled the Congress to struggle for power in every sphere of politics. In 2016, there was anti-incumbency factor, massive Modi wave etc., and subsequently Congress lost its fabulous ground, but performance was not as (…)

• Violence begets violence in West Bengal Politics: Political violence may intensify after the election results are announced | Tarun Kumar Basu

  1 May 2021

  by Tarun Kumar Basu
  Police recovered the blood-spattered body of a BJP worker in Salboni in West Midnapore, underlining how elections and violence were inseparable in the state during the first phase of the election in West Bengal on March 27. The house of a BJP leader in North Dinajpur district who had rebelled from the TMC was gutted. A former TMC MLA was heckled and his car vandalized in North Bengal. CPI(M) candidate Susanta Ghosh was taunted and stones were hurled at his car (…)

• What is the Issue, COVID or Democracy? | TJS George

  1 May 2021, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Let us face it, Corona has swept across India in ways that point to a failure of leadership. Shameful details that highlight this keep surfacing one after another. Hospital have been running out of oxygen, but India exported more than 9000 metric tons of oxygen during the current financial year’s first three quarters. Who is responsible for this idiotic situation? Bodies have been stacking up in morgues and crematoriums but central and state governments hide the (…)

• Corporate India in Mirror of the Pandemic | Prem Singh

  1 May 2021, by Prem Singh

  Bare truth
  When the Prime Minister imposed a sudden lockdown in the country last year on the night of 24-25 March, the heart-wrenching scenes of the exodus of migrant laborers brought forth the naked truth that the corporate India, which was being constructed for three decades, is sustained on the back of the hard-working masses. This truth is kept under wraps by the ruling classes under a mutual understanding as there is consensus among them on this very venture of corporate India. That (…)