Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Mystery of Sitalkuchi Firing - Where is the CCTV Footage? | Barun Das Gupta

  16 April 2021, by Barun Das Gupta

  The CISF fired on people standing in a queue to cast their votes at a booth at Sitalkuchi in Cooch Behar district of West Bengal on April 10. Four people were killed — all of them belonging to the minority community. The CISF story is that about 50 or 60 women had come menacingly toward them and tried to snatch their firearms. It is then that in self-defence they were forced to open fire. The first question is, if it were women who confronted the CISF, why no woman was killed or injured? The (…)

• Mizzima And The Story Of Indo-Myanmar Relations | Nandita Haksar

  16 April 2021, by Nandita Haksar

  The story of Mizzima media group is a good way to understand the Indo-Myanmar relationship with all its complexities. It is important to understand this relationship to have an informed debate on the issue of whether India should or should not help the Myanmar refugees trying to come across our borders to seek asylum from the brutalities of the Myanmar military regime which staged a coup on February 1, 2021.
  Indian Origin Burmese
  The position of Indians in Burma has always been (…)

• Response to the Qualms of the Ailing Body - Passive Euthanasia, Living Will and Right to Dying with Dignity: The Indian Standpoint | Minakshi Biswas

  16 April 2021

  by Minakshi Biswas *
  Last month a landmark decision was taken by Parliament of Spain which went on to legalise euthanasia in the country, a move that would come into effect from this year in June. The decision has not been free of contention like any other debatable confrontation on the subject of euthanasia. This legislation makes Spain the fourth country to be approving euthanasia following three other countries, namely Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. The Spanish legislation makes (…)

• Can Hindutva succeed in Bengal Politics? | Radhakanta Barik

  16 April 2021, by Radhakanta Barik

  by Prof Radhakanta Barik *
  Modi after winning the 2019 General Election is unable to win any major state in India. All the major states have gone out of their hands. After losing the election in MP and Karnataka they have been involved in horse-trading and buying of MLAs to form their government. There is a joke in Bengal and Assam that the opposition to the BJP has to win twenty extra seats more than the simple majority. It is going to be difficult to buy so many MLAs. In the 2019 General (…)

• OM is Not Communism: Hamlet And The Problem With The Indian Left | Murzban Jal

  16 April 2021

  by Murzban Jal
  There is a Beacon shining through the clouds of destiny. That Beacon is Russia. Lord Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, New Year’s Day of 1942.
  OM, Stalinism and the Problem of Hamlet
  When the good Lord Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury, saw a beacon of light in Russia emanating from the halo of Stalin just a few years after he (Stalin) massacred the leaders and the revolutionary rank and file of the Bolsheviks in the infamous Moscow Trials (1936-8) on trumped up charges (…)

• New Education Policy 2020: Recent Developments and Implementational Challenges | P S Jayaramu

  16 April 2021, by P S Jayaramu

  The Central Government came up with the New Education Policy ( popularly known as NEP 2020) towards the end of July last year. The Policy is being widely discussed since then, some heralding it as a paradigm shift in our education policy while many are pointing to its inadequacies. My purpose here is to analyse the recent decisions taken by the Central Government for implementing the NEP as well as present some of the challenges in implementating it.
  At the outset it needs to emphasised (…)

• Academic Autonomy: Needed a Holistic Societal Perspective | Arun Kumar

  16 April 2021, by Arun Kumar

  IIMC faculty is protesting the new code of conduct being imposed on them. Under the rules meant for the government bureaucracy, there can be no protest or criticism or petitions to higher authorities. With this, what autonomy will the faculty be left with? Delhi University faculties are currently discussing the implementation of the New Education Policies (NEP), one of whose key aspects is autonomy in institutions of higher learning. The resignation by Pratap B. Mehta from Ashoka University, (…)

• Hundred Years Back in Odisha Gandhi understood pre British Period from the perspectives of Swaraj | S N Sahu

  16 April 2021, by S N Sahu

  Hundred years back on 23rd March 2021 Mahatma Gandhi visited Orissa (now Odisha) for the first time. The objective of that visit was to mobilise and sensitise people about non-cooperation movement for enlisting their participation in large numbers and achieve Swaraj in one year. As he arrived in Cuttack in 1921 he was greeted by thousands with the cry of Vande Mataram and Hindu-Musalman ki Jay. The later slogan captured the spirit of Khilafat movement embodying the unity of Hindus and (…)

• Bofors, Rafales & The Beauty of Sin | T J S George

  16 April 2021, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Nobody wants to be a sinner. But who can avoid sin in this begotted world? The wise tackle this conundrum by joining the right party at the right time. When that is done, all sins are absolved, ignored forgotten and/or exonerated, vindicated, discharged.
  The latest to prove this truism of life are two familiar stars, Mithun Chakraborty and Satabdi Roy. Household names in Bengal, they became brand ambassadors of the Saradha chit fund scheme which was once popular (…)

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  Statement on the demise of founding member of Pakistan India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy I. A Rehman | April 12, 2021

  16 April 2021

  I. A. Rehman, a legend, a crusader for justice, peace and democracy, a lover of literature, poetry and music is no more.
  It is the rarest of men for whom it can truly be said that their passing away diminishes us each, personally- in the joy, care, generosity and well-being that he brought to every friendship, and politically – in the towering inspiration that he was in all our common struggles against social and economic injustice and violations of the rights of the marginalised; his (…)