Mainstream Weekly

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• It Rains Muck of Corruption Everywhere | Khurshid Alam

  31 July 2020

  I’ve heard that it rains fish at some places Gold at some other places. It rained muck of corruption At our places this monsoon.
  Some roads in Delhi caved in The mud filled the underbridges in Mumbai. Some newly laid roads have been washed away Even the 260-crore rich Sattargarh bridge In Bihar has been swept away.
  The rivers have swallowed the costly bunds The concrete roads have turned into pools of mud Houses, people, and animals are submerged Municipalities and hospitals are full (…)

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  Table of Contents Mainstream - Lockdown Edition no.18 | July 25, 2020

  24 July 2020

  Table of Contents - Mainstream, VOL LVIII No 32, New Delhi, July 25, 2020 Letter to the Readers Mainstream, Covid-19 Lockdown Edition no.18 -July 25 | The Editor When the State Fears a Poet | Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla June 25 1975/July 25 2020: Reflections on a Prison in Delhi | Uma Chakravarti Pandemic puts India in ‘precarious position’ | M. K. Bhadrakumar Covid Redefines the State | D.K. Giri Why 2020 is not 1962 | Praveen Davar DOCUMENT: Memo to Election Commission of India from (…)

• LETTER TO THE READERS - Mainstream’s COVID 19 Lockdown Edition No.18 -July 25

  24 July 2020

  The deteriorating state of democracy under the Modi Regime: The weakening of institutions of our republic began a while ago but in the post-2014 period it has become sharply pronounced. In the past few years activists, writers, lawyers championing democratic rights, civil liberties and rights of marginalised have become targets of the ruling party and the security agencies under the control of the central government. Many such people have been arrested and are languishing in jails. On (…)

• When the State Fears a Poet | Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla

  24 July 2020, by Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla

  Celebrated Indian poet, human rights activist, and political prisoner Varavara Rao, now eighty and in frail health, is in mortal danger of succumbing to COVID-19 if he is not released from prison, where he has been on and off since 2018 on trumped-up conspiracy charges.

• June 25 1975/July 25 2020: Reflections on a Prison in Delhi | Uma Chakravarti

  24 July 2020, by Uma Chakravarti

  These days news reports of arbitrary arrests, jails and jail conditions are a reminder of the sudden and dramatic imposition of the Emergency in 1975, when there was no recourse to legal remedy of any kind — no vakil, no daleel and no appeal — which became shorthand for the suspension of civil rights. Those who went to jail just stayed there until the end of the Emergency, when Indira Gandhi was swept out of power in the general elections of 1977. Despite substantial differences between then (…)

• Pandemic puts India in ‘precarious position’ | M. K. Bhadrakumar

  24 July 2020, by M K Bhadrakumar

  Poonthura fishing village near Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, where community transmission of Covid-19 pandemic is reported.

• Covid Redefines the State | D.K. Giri

  24 July 2020, by D.K. Giri

  Covid pandemic is unprecedented in human history. Any disaster including the Spanish Flue of 1918 which infected 500 million people and claimed about 20 million lives, did not affect so many countries. The Second World War saw the death of about 70 million people, but did not involve every country in the world. The covid-19, despite lower death rates, about half a million so far, disrupted social lives and national economies in countries and regions of the world.
  Disruption of lives in (…)

• Why 2020 is not 1962 | Praveen Davar

  24 July 2020

  by Praveen Davar
  India may be the only country in the world where the politicians keep returning to the past whenever faced with a crisis at home. When it comes to an India-China standoff the BJP’s propaganda machinery, backed especially by an obliging electronic media, moves to the top gear to take us back to 1962 and remind us of the military debacle suffered at the hands of China. This has been happening every year for the last three or four decades. This year, with the situation at LAC (…)

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  Memorandum from Political Parties to the India’s Election Commission opposing the digital poll campaign in 2020 Bihar legislative assembly election

  24 July 2020

  [Text of the memorandum submitted by CPI and eight other political parties - INC, RJD, CPI (M), CPI(ML), RLSP, VIP, HAM, LJD - to the Election Commission opposing the digital poll campaign. (received on 18 July 2020)]
  To,
  The Chief Election Commissioner,
  Subject: Ensuring substantial public participation and providing equal opportunity to all opposition parties in 2020 Bihar legislative assembly election
  Dear Sir,
  We write to you today to draw your attention to the emergent health (…)

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  Open Letter to Chief Minister, Odisha on outbreak of Covid cases in Berhampur Jail | Jan Adhikar Manch, Odisha - 22 July 2020

  24 July 2020

  We, in Jan Adhikar Manch, Odisha, are deeply concerned that the Covid-19 pandemic is rapidly spreading in Odisha too. While reports in the mass media state that jail inmates are getting increasingly affected by the pandemic in states like Maharashtra and Assam, similar reports today claim that 33 under trial prisoners and 10 staff of Berhampur Circle Jail, District Ganjam have tested Covid-19 positive. Hence, we draw your attention to the condition of prisoners housed in various jails across the state and demand quick remedial measures.