Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Myanmar Army Rule | Harish Chandola

  2 April 2021, by Harish Chandola

  It is now over a month that the Burmese (Myanmar) army is out on its streets shooting its people who are all on strike, demanding restoration of its civilian rule, which the army had brought to an end in the beginning of last month. Over 300 people have been killed by the Army, called Tatmadaw, so far, after ousting its elected civilian government of Aung San Su Chi. The people have not given up their struggle against military rule. Before that only one community, the Rohingyas, were in (…)

• Myanmar’s civil disobedience movement is built on decades of struggle | Lisa Brooten

  2 April 2021

  by Lisa Brooten*
  Two months after Myanmar’s coup, the country’s civil disobedience movement is awe-inspiring in its resilience against vicious military crackdowns. According to Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, as of 24 March, 286 people have been killed and 2906 arrested, charged or sentenced. Despite this heavy price, the civil disobedience movement’s effectiveness is unprecedented. But its unity is not solely due to the current crisis, widespread hatred for the Myanmar (…)

• Whatever Happened To Dialectical Materialism? | Murzban Jal

  2 April 2021

  by Murzban Jal
  Not only in its answers, in its questions there was a mystification. —Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology.
  Abraham Josef’s article ‘Dialectical Materialism: The People’s Philosophy’ that recalls philosophy, not merely any philosophy, but Marxist philosophy is indeed refreshing for not only the votary of Marxism, but to any sensible fighter for democracy and seeker of knowledge. It is refreshing because for decades we were bombarded with concepts like (…)

• Bantala: Anatomy of a Lynching Foretold | Sujit Chakraborty

  2 April 2021

  by Sujit Chakraborty
  On May 30, 1990, at Bantala, off the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, on the way to the delta, three women health officers were raped and lynched when their car was trapped by a crowd of hoods. One of the ladies and the driver of their car died. Police and the state government gave out the story that the team was suspected of being child-lifters. The mainstream media in Calcutta conveniently nodded the same story. But was it so simple? A rather scary investigation later (…)

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  When Truth Defeated Murdoch | M R Narayan Swamy

  2 April 2021, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW
  Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught up with Rupert Murdoch by Nick Davies Publishers: Vintage Books, London; Pages 444; Price: 14.99 pounds
  FOR too long he was considered invincible. The Australia-born American media mogul was all too powerful, who thought he could make and unmake governments — if nowhere else certainly in Britain. And his was a vast empire. Murdoch owned (and still does) hundreds of local, national and international publishing outlets including The Sun and (…)

• China resents US presence in Afghanistan | M K Bhadrakumar

  2 April 2021, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The “hidden agenda” of the war on terror in Afghanistan has been an open secret. The first inkling of its geopolitical character came when it transpired that even after installing a pro-US regime in Kabul in 2002-2003, Pentagon was in no mood to vacate its Central Asian bases. Finally, the bloody Islamist uprising in Andijan in Fergana Valley in May 2005 prompted Russia and China to orchestrate an SCO consensus seeking the expulsion of the US from those bases.
  However, in public (…)

• Don’t let the Istanbul Convention die! Manifesto against the restriction of women’s rights in Central and Eastern Europe

  2 April 2021

  The following manifesto was written by Romanian comrades, who held a solidarity event with Turkish women on 25th March in front of the Turkish Embassy in Bucharest.
  On the night of 19th to 20th March, the President of Turkey decided to withdraw the country from the Istanbul Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence. He allegedly argued that under the Convention’s protection, the family unit is destroyed, divorces are encouraged, and equality for (…)

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  Rosebud XXI - A sketch | Sukhvinder Shahi (March 24, 2021, New York)

  2 April 2021, by Sukhvinder Shahi
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  Photo of the Italian Communist Party Sputnik-car for propaganda during Italian general election, 1958

  2 April 2021

  The Italian Communists made an amazing campaign vehicle during the 1958 General Election —A model of the Soviet satellite Sputnik was put atop a car and with speaker concealed inside the satellite. The loudspeaker would blurt out the election messages & slogans of the Italian Communist Party (PCI)

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  Cartoon - Ireland compared to colonial India. Irish Press, 31 Oct. 1931

  2 April 2021