Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• RSS steadily moving towards creation of Hindu Rashtra | Arun Srivastava

  21 August 2020

  by Arun Srivastava
  With Modi’s rise in the national politics a shift in the power structure within the BJP and broader Sangh Parivar was noticed. The RSS brought in its committed cadres and those who cannot emerge as the focal point of politics on their own to the centre stage. Modi’s 2014 victory was interpreted as purely development-oriented, and an impression gained that the new government’s reign would be marked by a laser-like focus on implementing economic reforms and (…)

• 

  Prime Minister Modi, Take-up the concerns of subalterns instead of co-opting Buddha for political gain | Badre Alam Khan

  21 August 2020

  by Badre Alam Khan
  Buddha’s Challenge to Brahminism by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd January 2019 | 260 pages | SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd
  Before participating in the Bhumi Pujan (ground-breaking ceremony) at Ayodhya on 5th August, the PM Modi has earlier highlighted the rich legacy of India’s heritage and philosophical thoughts of Lord Buddha and said that his teachings as vividly described in the Eight-fold Path can help to overcome the current global crisis in general and India in (…)

• Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute is under a ruinous state | Nityananda Ghosh

  21 August 2020

  A precarious situation prevails at the Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute (CGCRI) amidst Covid-19 pandemic. Like many other Central research institutions, CGCRI too has already lost its past glory, primarily due to the saffron show. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) calls the shots and at the helm is one Dr K. Muralidharan, whose main qualifications are not scientific and academic achievements but his adherence to saffron ideology.

• Bangladesh: Janata Bank scandal and Prothom Alo’s tendentious journalism - A different look | Subhash Kumar Sengupta

  21 August 2020

  by Subhash Kumar Sengupta*
  Time and again removal of existing chairman and instead appointment of a new one in state-owned Bank has now become a fashion or tradition in Bangladesh. In the relatively recent past (2011), following widely discussed hallmark scandal, the government terminated the whole Board of Sonali Bank. However, the chairman of the Basic Bank was given the opportunity (in 2014) to resign from his post. On the other hand, the government has acquitted Jamaluddin Ahmed (in (…)

• Kamala Harris and India | Faraz Ahmad

  21 August 2020, by Faraz Ahmad

  The nomination of Kamala Harris, a half Jamaican, half Indian American, as the running mate of Democrats’ Presidential nominee Joe Biden, for vice presidency of the United States of America (USA), is a decisive moment not just in the history of the United States but also for the White Europe.
  The people of the United States with a history of enslaving the Africans and trading in humans, made significant progress in 2009 when they elected Barrack Husain Obama as their President (…)

• Revolution or Exile?: A Reply To A Letter To The Maoists | Murzban Jal

  21 August 2020

  by Murzban Jal
  But an end which requires unjustifiable means is no justifiable end... Karl Marx, Debates on the Freedom of the Press.
  At surface reading, when the global right-wing forces have created almost unassailable hegemony, where the parliamentary left is bewildered, almost enslaved to these reactionary forces, any spark that may lead to a prairie fire seems inspiring. In this sense when the parliamentary left behaves more like government clerks, any force that seems not to be a (…)

• 

  Nadya Krupskaya: the Russian revolutionary | Vashna Jagarnath

  21 August 2020

  A new English translation of Bolshevik leader N.K. Krupskaya’s first published work, “The Woman Worker,”

• Lebanon: Clearing the Rubble | Loubna El Amine

  21 August 2020

  by Loubna El Amine *
  It was unimaginable that things could get worse in Lebanon. But they did. Weeks into the country’s worst economic crisis, compounded by the pandemic, 2570 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, stored in Beirut’s port, exploded on Tuesday. Because the blast was preceded by a fire, phone cameras were already trained on the port when the mushroom cloud went up. Most of the video footage lasts only a couple of seconds before the people taking it are knocked to the ground. Blurry (…)

• Open Letter of Solidarity and Protest Against Homophobic Repression in Poland

  21 August 2020

  Homophobic aggression in Poland is growing because it is condoned by the ruling party, which has chosen sexual minorities as a scapegoat with no regard for the safety and well-being of citizens.

• 

  150 years of Law of Sedition - Time to do away with this anachronistic piece of legislation | Jannat

  21 August 2020

  by Jannat*
  "There is no crueller tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice" - Montesquieu, French Philosopher
  Could sloganeering like "Pakistan zindabad", supporting the Pakistan team in a cricket match, participating in a play that critiques the government, protesting the government policies or dissenting against the government be regarded as offences against the state? If the history of prosecutions under sec 124A of Indian Penal Code (…)