Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Covid 19 Resources - Suggestions About Masking / Home care for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19

  1 May 2021

  [1] Play
  Mask-Up The Right Way: Double Masking | FYI by NDTV https://youtu.be/CDmWjyvOmWA
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  [2] Recommended readings:
  Home care for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and management of their contacts - WHO https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/home-care-for-patients-with-suspected-novel-coronavirus-(ncov)-infection-presenting-with-mild-symptoms-and-management-of-contacts
  Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Home care for health workers and (…)

• Caste in India: ‘blind recruitment’ for the civil service won’t fix the system | Srilata Sircar and Vignesh Rajahmani

  1 May 2021

  April 6, 2021
  “What is your full name?” This question – when asked of an Indian – is often intended to determine the respondent’s caste. In a society where rigid hierarchies run deep, the answer to an innocuous question can hold the key to many doors – especially when it comes to employment.
  Naming conventions in India are marked by explicit connotations of caste lineage and at times, even the intricate details of subcategories within a caste group too. Today, names are typically (…)

• Reforms In Civil Services: Issues and Challenges | Nisha Mishra

  1 May 2021

  by Nisha Mishra*
  “We need government servants with commitments to the development of the country and personal involvement in the tasks.” — Indira Gandhi
  The civil services, the administrative apparatus of the state and the architecture of governance are seen as instruments to actualize the vision into reality. India inherited an extensive and well-defined administrative set up from the British (popularly known as ‘steel frame’) but the challenge to change its spirit and outlook, attitude (…)

• Without ‘Annihilation of Caste’, Agenda of Social Transformation Will not be Possible | Badre Alam Khan

  1 May 2021

  by Badre Alam Khan*
  “Until 1990, Ambedkar was untouchable to all mainstream political parties’’ -Prof. Kancha Ilaiah
  On the auspicious occasion of the 130th birth anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar (celebrated as the Ambedkar Jayanti on14th Aprilevery year), most of the parties irrespective of ideological standpoints (such as Left, Right, Centre and Ambedkarites) are busy in paying tribute to him. The last week has been celebrated as the Ambedkar-Phule Jayanti Saftah by progressive and (…)

• Revisiting the writings of Dr B.R. Ambedkar through the feminist discourse | Arpita Giri

  1 May 2021

  by Arpita Giri*
  Despite the phenomenal impact it had in transforming the lives of women and his contribution to the contemporary feminist movement, Dr Ambedkar’s thoughts remain marginalized and unacknowledged in the feminist discourse. As a visionary of social justice, and believer in an egalitarian society, Dr Ambedkar was a firm believer in women’s social, political and economic equality. His writings, speeches and work, by identifying the interlinkages between caste and gender (…)

• A Peep Into ‘Hindu’ Narratives of Bengal History! | Shamsul Islam

  1 May 2021, by Shamsul Islam

  The whole thrust of the RSS-BJP election campaign for 2021 state assembly elections in Bengal has been to save Bengal from the rule of Mamata Bannerjee who is not a ‘Hindu’.
  PM of India, Narendra Bhai Modi, a self-proclaimed Hindu nationalist, as usual set the polarizing agenda. While addressing the first election rally, he called upon the electorate to overthrow the ‘nirmam’ (cruel) rule of Mamata by showing a ‘Ram Card’. He did not name Hindus directly but there was no confusion about (…)

• Prisoners During the Pandemic | Humra Quraishi

  1 May 2021, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  28 April 2021
  What is happening to the jailed population of this country in these pandemic times? What are the latest inputs to the health of the imprisoned? Are they fine or are they semi- alive, in the clutches of a collapsing system?
  In fact, last week I was appalled to read the particular news report which described that the jailed ailing journalist Siddique Kappan has been chained to the hospital bed in a particular hospital in Uttar Pradesh. Many more traumatic (…)

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  Maddox on Megan A. Styles’s Roses from Kenya: Labor, Environment, and the Global Trade in Cut Flowers

  1 May 2021

  ROSES FROM KENYA: LABOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND THE GLOBAL TRADE IN CUT FLOWERS
  by Megan A. Styles
  Culture, Place, and Nature Series. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. Illustrations, map, charts. 256 pp. $30.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-295-74650-0; $95.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-295-74651-7.
  Reviewed by Gregory H. Maddox (Texas Southern University)
  Megan Styles has written an anthropology of place based on the export cut-flower industry in Naivasha, Kenya. In her analysis, place stands (…)

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  Twitter Removes Posts on Govt Orders | Jayaraj Vellur

  1 May 2021, by Jayaraj Vellur
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  Photo: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, with members of the Artists’ Union, on the May Day March, Mexico City, 1929

  1 May 2021