Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• India Vaccine Rollout Plan Has Serious Shortcomings | Gyan Pathak

  15 January 2021

  by Gyan Pathak
  January 12, 2021
  With the launch of the World’s biggest immunization drive on January 16, India is all set to create a history, but with several ominous signs too. The whole vaccine rollout plan, as stands after the meeting of our Prime Minister and Chief Ministers of the states, sets top priority on perceived threats over the real threats, indicative of someone having laymen’s ideas calling the shots in the name of experts to prevail over all reasons and common sense. On (…)

• Lame Duck – A Peril | Chittarvu Raghu

  15 January 2021

  by Chittarvu Raghu
  The United States election process requires the Congress to validate the election of the President. Congress is a bicameral legislature, the Senate being the upper house and the House of Representatives the lower house.
  A raucous mob raided the capitol building displaying pro-Trump slogans and managed to enter the Senate chamber at the time when the election results were being certified. Obviously it shows that the intention was to prevent the congress from certifying (…)

• Is This What Democracy Has Come To? | T J S George

  15 January 2021, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Incredible things are happening in America. An incumbent President refusing to vacate office is unheard-of. Donald Trump is doing what no US President has done in the past, indeed, what no government head in a democracy has done. The result is not just the crumbling of American democracy; physical attacks are taking place by one group against another. Barack Obama put it right when he said that violence at the US Capitol Hill had brought shame to the US.
  To see the horror (…)

• Mayhem At Capitol Hill Wake Up Call To Democrats Of The World | Vijay Kumar

  15 January 2021

  by Vijay Kumar
  The storming of US Congress in Capitol Hill on 6th January by the mob incited by the outgoing President may be shocking, but not surprising. This attack in the very citadel of American Democracy is a culmination of toxic combination of neoliberalism and demagoguery anchored in racism. It would, however, be a grave mistake to term this unprecedented violence as a unique to US. The symptom of this kind, which is prelude to fascism, is present in many countries, including in (…)

• Capitol Hill Violence: The darkness of democracy | Jyoti Dalal

  15 January 2021

  by Jyoti Dalal *
  Events of Capitol Hill are indicative of the larger darkness that is ready to engulf modern democracies. Located within democracy, this darkness cannot just be expunged.
  The takeover of the Capitol Hill, regardless of what is it called — coup, carnage, riot, protests — provides an opportune moment to reflect on deep seated anxieties of contemporary times. The specificity of this event reflects the inert and dead nature that plagues most of the existing modern, liberal (…)

• Against Violation of Human Rights of Farmers | Arup Kumar Sen

  15 January 2021, by Arup Kumar Sen

  India is witnessing a unique farmers’ movement with thousands of farmers camping on the highways outside Delhi borders for weeks and spending cold nights for claiming their rights. The farmers are sustaining themselves with community/family support.
  The ongoing farmers’ movement has witnessed gross human rights violations in different forms. Given the fact that the ‘biased media’ did not cover the “real picture of farmers’ affliction, distress and agony”, the students of Centre for Human (…)

• Pandemic and Transition Towards a Green and Just Economy | Soumyadip Chattopadhyay

  15 January 2021

  by Soumyadip Chattopadhyay *
  The Backdrop
  While the possibility of flattening out of the covid-19 curve remains a purely speculative exercise, India has actually experienced flattening out of its economic curve. The micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), providing 110 million jobs in India, are battling for survival as prolonged shutdown and various restrictions on economic activities have put their solvency at jeopardy leading into unavoidable layoffs and significant job losses. (…)

• Perils of Botched American Intervention in Afghanistan | Manoj Kumar Mishra

  15 January 2021

  by Manoj Kumar Mishra *
  Following the 9/11 terror attacks on the US mainland, Washington’s response was initially framed according to Article 51 of the UN Charter, which stipulates that retaliation must be in self-defense. However, to legitimize its long-term presence, the US resorted to the language of humanitarian intervention and provided humanitarian justifications, so the removal of the repressive Taliban regime was provided as the rationale of the war and provision of a stable and (…)

• The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will come into force in January 2021 | Siby K. Joseph

  15 January 2021

  by Siby K. Joseph
  It is an irony of history that a person who invented dynamite in 1867 and other terribly dangerous explosives later became a champion for promoting peace. It is the story of the Swedish scientist, Alfred Nobel, a scientist turned arms dealer who owned more than 90 factories manufacturing explosives and ammunition, when he passed away in 1896 in San Remo, Italy. If he had not instituted in his will the idea of Nobel Prize and decided to use his dynamite fortune for the (…)

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  Press Release of the Janta Parliament’s Special Kisan Session with Political Representatives (Jan 12, 2021)

  15 January 2021

  [Jan 12, 2021]
  Press Release of the Janta Parliament’s Special Kisan Session with Political Representatives
  The resolutions passed and questions raised in the earlier six sessions of the Special Kisan
  Session of the Janta Parliament were posed today to the political parties which were represented by senior leaders from the Congress, TMC, CPI-ML, CPI, RJD, VCK, AIFB, SP and CPI(M).
  What followed was a dialogue between the members of the presidium, who were P. Sainath, Aruna (…)