Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Dissident movements within the Eastern bloc aspired to genuine socialism | Catherine Samary

  6 June 2020

  One of the received ideas that became a ‘truth’ after the fall of the Berlin Wall was that the Soviet bloc’s populations cursed communism, yet obeyed it slavishly. In fact, many social movements within the Eastern bloc had long aspired to genuine socialism.

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  Statement by Indian Feminists On The Police Violence That Killed George Floyd

  6 June 2020

  DOCUMENT
  We, feminists in India, strongly condemn the murder of George Floyd, an African-American, by a white officer of the Minneapolis Police Department, and express our deep solidarity with the people’s resistance against police violence presently raging in the US and many other parts of the world.
  Words from George Floyd in his death throes, "I cannot breathe", speak to each one of us. Recent data has yielded clear evidence that the Black community in the US has borne the brunt of (…)

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  USA: Police Failing to Ensure Right to Protest, Endangering Lives - Statement by Amnesty International USA

  6 June 2020

  Amnesty International – USA
  For Immediate Release
  Sunday, May 30, 2020
  WASHINGTON - Rachel Ward, National Director of Research at Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), issued the following statement about the police response in cities nationwide to this weekend’s protests.
  “U.S. police across the country are failing their obligations under international law to respect and facilitate the right to peaceful protest, exacerbating a tense situation and endangering the lives of protesters. In (…)

• They could never breathe | Sukumaran C.V.

  6 June 2020, by Sukumaran C.V.

  George Floyd, an innocent African American, was killed in the night of May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis, by a white policeman pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck. Floyd was not even the suspect the policeman suspected him to be! On 26 June 2011, in Mississippi, a group of white teenagers savagely beat up James Anderson, a middle-aged African American, and then they ran over him with a pick up truck and killed him. It is believed world over, or rather the world is forced to believe, that the (…)

• Time to think about the history of Hand Washing | Jos Chathukulam

  6 June 2020

  by Jos Chathukulam
  By now most of us have become very vigilant about washing our hands with soap or sanitizers as it is widely touted as an effective strategy to contain the spread of the novel Coronavirus. As the world grapples with the deadly pandemic, hand washing has turned out to be the definitive public health practice that needs to be religiously adopted in our daily lives.
  According to the guidelines issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), a proper hand wash involves (…)

• In My Own Voice: The Great Migration

  6 June 2020, by Sagari Chhabra

  By now all of us have broken our hearts and moved between rage and despair at the merciless way in which our people are walking for miles back to their villages without adequate food, water or shelter. The two year old child pulling the sheet that covers her mother - trying to wake her up – but she does not move, for she is dead; the seven-month pregnant woman trudging down a highway and a young widow with her child who finally arrives ‘home’ but is compelled to live outside her village; (…)

• Draft National Education Policy 2019 needs fine-tuning | Gull Mohammad Wani

  6 June 2020

  by Prof Gull Mohammad Wani
  The draft National Education Policy 2019 (henceforth DNEP) with Dr Kasturirangan as its chairman was placed in public domain for wider discussion by different stakeholders. The Covid-19 has meanwhile thrown new challenges to all spheres of life including education at all levels. The two core issues that have gained visibility in these disturbing times are: one, that everybody is looking towards state for resolution of problems giving rise to the idea of (…)

• A Tale of Two Credit Agencies! | L. K. Sharma

  6 June 2020

  by L. K. Sharma
  Moody’s “spoils Modi’s historic day”, a daily screams. Moody’s pricks the Modi government’s balloon by downgrading India’s foreign currency and local currency long-term issuer ratings from Baa2 to Baa3 — the lowest rung in its investment-grade rating system. It points to “the risks of a sustained period of relatively low growth, significant deterioration in the general government fiscal position and stress in the financial sector.”
  The report did not plunge India into (…)

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  Table of Contents - Lockdown Edition no10 | 30 May 2020

  2 June 2020

  Contents Mainstream Weekly, May 30, 2020
  LETTER TO THE READERS - COVID 19 Lockdown Edition no.10 Government’s Package is Not What is Immediately Needed| Arun Kumar PM’s financial package took Indians for a huge ride and committed a statistical fraud Dipankar Bhattacharya Feel a little shame for the lost soul of a nation | Avay Shukla Deconstructing Telinipara Violence in West Bengal | Kumar Sen Celebrating the Goa Statehood Day | Eduardo Faleiro Ready for a (…)

• LETTER TO THE READERS - COVID 19 Lockdown Edition no.10

  30 May 2020

  Today is May 30, 2020. A year ago Narendra Modi Government returned to power with a lot of fanfare. Today the PM, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, have, while recalling the past year, sought to blow their trumpets in two major national dailies in a bid to highlight the ’achievements’ of the Modi 2.0 again bringing into focus the contours of ’self-reliant advance of the country’ under the Modi-Shah dispensation.
  In contrast, what the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha (…)