Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Pandemic and the Reverse Migration of Labour in India

  6 June 2020, by Sunanda Sen

  The current predicaments faced by of India’s migrant labour - losing livelihood and shelter in urban areas as started with the 4-hour notice for a complete shutdown in response to the Pandemic - will remain as one of the worst humanitarian crisis the country has ever faced since independence. The gruesome details of the sufferings by masses of the uprooted people lacking access to shelter, food or sources of income or even means of transport to take them back to places they came from, (…)

• NCoV19 and Selling India Inc. Model of Self-Reliance with Local Rhetoric

  6 June 2020

  by D M Diwakar
  Context
  The 2019 Novel Corona Virus (2019-nCoV) pandemic detected from Wuhan (China) has created unprecedented crises before the world economy and society. Since a vaccine to combat this virus was yet to be developed by the world medical science communities, the World Health Organization (WHO) circulated region specific general health emergency guidelines (WHO, 2020) after outbreak of 2019-nCoV pandemic in China in December 2019. Testing, Tracing, Tracking, Sanitizing, (…)

• A Sceptre is Haunting the World

  6 June 2020, by Kobad Ghandy

  “The Risk of a new Great Depression, worse than the original is rising by the day”.—Nouriel Roubini
  “This could morph into a financial crisis. We will see higher default rates and business failures. It could be like the 1930s”. —Carmen Reinhart (Prof. of Economics & Finance at Harvard Kennedy’s School of Govt.)
  “Worst Financial Crisis since the Great Depression of 1929”. —CNBC veteran analyst
  Jim Richards, former advisor to the CIA and Pentagon as also the Fed, has (…)

• Economic pain digs up in rural india | Tarun Kumar Basu

  6 June 2020

  by Tarun Kumar Basu
  Economic pain deepens in rural India for massive attack of COVID-19 even though stimulus financial packages announced by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and assured free food,fuel and a regular cash transfer for the poor.
  But the question arises whether the announcement of programs in press conference by the Finance Minister is sufficient for livelihood of the rural people in the country. The experts say that it depends upon the effectiveness and (…)

• National Lockdown and Primitive Accumulation in India

  6 June 2020, by Arup Kumar Sen

  While discussing ‘The Secret of Primitive Accumulation’ in Capital, Vol. 1, Karl Marx observed: “The primitive accumulation plays in Political Economy about the same part as original sin in theology”. In the history of primitive accumulation, Marx identified “those moments when great masses of men are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence...” Marx’s characterisation of primitive accumulation is organically connected with his analysis of the logic of Capital: “The (…)

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  India: release poet P Varavara Rao on medical grounds - Statement by PEN International

  6 June 2020

  DOCUMENT
  PEN International
  1 June 2020
  PEN International is deeply concerned for the welfare of Indian poet P. Varavara Rao who has been in detention since November 2018. Aged 81 and in poor health, a bail hearing for Rao is due 2 June 2020. Given his fragile state of health and questions surrounding the validity of the charges under which he is held, PEN is calling for him to be released on medical grounds.
  A Marxist poet and activist, Rao is considered an important figure in Telugu (…)

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  Provide Immediate Cash Transfers and Free Rations - Statement by Left Parties on 30 May 2020

  6 June 2020

  DOCUMENT
  May 30, 2020
  Press Statement
  The Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), the Revolutionary Socialist Party and the All India Forward Bloc have issued the following statement:
  Provide Immediate Cash Transfers and Free Rations
  The GDP growth rate data for 2019-20, released yesterday coinciding with the completion of the first year of the Modi 2.0 Government resoundingly vindicates what the Left parties (…)

• Central Vista enshrines the history of the nation’s most central institutions | Swapna Liddle

  6 June 2020

  A Place in our History
  by Swapna Liddle, MAY 24 2020
  When the British government first considered transferring the capital of their Raj from Calcutta to Delhi, they knew that it would be an unpopular decision among powerful British commercial and political interests, most of whom were connected with Calcutta. In the minds of the decision-makers – the Viceroy, Hardinge, and the Secretary of State, Crewe, however, there were considerations that outweighed this.
  Hardinge had first (…)

• Babri Masjid, Ram Janmbhumi and Buddhist Relics | Ram Puniyani

  6 June 2020

  by Ram Puniyani Country is under lockdown. Most of the activities related to production and construction have come to a standstill barring few. One such is the construction of the Ram temple. The path for this has been cleared by the Supreme Court judgement. This judgement has been not widely debated as ‘Muslim side’ had conceded that whatever be the decision of SC, they will accept it. The Hindu side, RSS and its progeny, had hinted times and over again that come what may the temple will (…)

• Why the Wren is a Patriot and not a Nationalist

  6 June 2020, by Badri Raina

  Here is how the sight of a wren, the smallest of birds in creation, fighting to protect her little nest from an intruding hawk taught me the difference between patriotism and nationalism.
  As she unleashed the fury of her miniscule wings and beak, I heard the wren say the following to the overbearing hawk who had obvious contempt for the little bird seeking to defend so negligible a homestead:
  “Dear predator, here is what you need to understand: the same god who made (…)