Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Government’s Package is Not What is Immediately Needed

  30 May 2020, by Arun Kumar

  Indian Society is in a crisis is an understatement; it is in dire straits. Millions are migrating from cities to their villages in extreme conditions and many have died on the way. The health situation brought about by COVID-19 is not under control with the number of cases detected and numbers dying on the rise. Unemployment is acute and the economy is in a deep depression, something it has not witnessed ever before.
  All this requires society, the collective, to pull itself up from the (…)

• PM’s financiaI package took Indians for a huge ride and committed a statistical fraud

  30 May 2020

  A monumental fraud was pulled off when PM claimed in his televised address that an extra 10 per cent of the GDP would be spent to overcome the crisis induced by the pandemic and the lockdown
  by Dipankar Bhattacharya
  While preaching his gospel of treating the COVID-19 pandemic crisis as an opportunity and outlining his latest rhetoric of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat in his televised address on May 12, Prime Minister Narendra Modi dropped some big numbers.
  He announced a package worth around (…)

• Feel a little shame for the lost soul of a nation | Avay Shukla

  30 May 2020

  The Lock Down Diaries —VIII
  View from [Greater] Kailash, Thursday, 21 May 2020
  by Avay Shukla IAS
  This is not about the sorry exodus of millions of our more unfortunate brothers and sisters playing out on prime TV these days. It is not a piece about the government, or about politics or economics. It is neither critical nor sacerdotal. It is not about Mr Modi or the Biblical scale suffering he has inflicted, yet again, on those who had put their trust in him. That is a matter between (…)

• Deconstructing Telinipara Violence in West Bengal

  30 May 2020, by Arup Kumar Sen

  While the public attention is focused on the spread of the coronavirus, Telinipara, a locality in the Bhadreswar town of Hooghly district in West Bengal, witnessed anti-Muslim communal violence.
  Reportedly, a small inter-community squabble broke out on May 10, 2020, in the locality, which was resolved by police intervention. A Ground Report, carried in The Wire stated that “on the afternoon of...May 12, a big mob descended on the locality and large-scale targeted violence followed”. The (…)

• Celebrating the Goa Statehood Day

  30 May 2020, by Eduardo Faleiro

  On May 30 we celebrate the Goa Statehood Day. Goa was liberated from the colonial rule in December 1961. After Liberation a major controversy arose as to whether it should remain a separate territory or should merge into a neighbouring State, Maharashtra or Mysore. In 1967, an Opinion Poll was held, the only such referendum in independent India. It decided that Goa, Daman and Diu should remain a separate entity with the status of an Union Territory. Thereafter all the three major political (…)

• Ready for a Grave New World?

  30 May 2020, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Virus cannot beat humour. A fun story circulating on the internet is titled «Class of 2025.» A delightfully strict school teacher calls out her class attendance ... Quarantine Joshi, Lockdown Singh Rathore, Covid Awasthi, Corona Pal Singh, Social Distan Singh, Mask Mahto, Gloves Gaekwad, Wuhan Bhadoria. When Wuhan does not respond, she warns: «Wuhan! You and Covid are very naughty. Get out of my class.» She admits in motherly style that her favourite student is Atmanirbharan (…)

• Pandemic and Employment Guarantee: A Review

  30 May 2020

  by Debatra K. Dey (Dept. of Economics, Srikrishna College, Bagula, W.B)
  It was probably the first time in India under the regime of liberal economy that the gap between India and Bharat became prominent when the Report of the National Commission For Enterprise in the Unorganised Sector in 2007 mentioned that ‘It concentrates on a detailed analysis of the conditions of work and lives of the unorganised workers consisting of about 92 per cent of the total workforce of about 457 million (as (…)

• Diluting Labour Laws: Expansion of Neo-liberal Governance Regime

  30 May 2020, by Nayakara Veeresha

  by Nayakara Veeresha
  27.05.2020
  Keywords: Alienation, Governance, Labour, Rights and Law
  The novel corona virus (Covid-19) has affected the economy severely apart from the health crisis resulting in growth slowdown of major sectors. The agriculture, automobile, hotel, travel and tourism, manufacturing and services sectors are at the receiving end where in the production process has stagnated and curtailed the delivery of essential and non-essential goods. The national lockdown in India (…)

• An ill-wind blows in J&K after UT status | Anand K. Sahay

  30 May 2020

  by Anand K. Sahay
  As the year turned, however, it became evident that the local terrorists who had stayed under the radar began to find their stride
  We will do well to recall that the fundamental reason cited in August 2019 for dissolving the state of Jammu and Kashmir — whose maharaja acceded to India on terms that explicated a clearly enunciated autonomy — was that the existence of this autonomy engendered a “separatist” mindset in the Valley.
  That false premise produced the false (…)

• Injustice as Reflected in the Day-to-Day Life of a Muslim Village

  30 May 2020, by Bharat Dogra

  Jarva Chowki is a rural hamlet located in Atarra Gramin Panchayat of Banda District (Uttar Pradesh). This hamlet is inhabited by 45 Muslim households.
  The normal day-to-day life here is a life of extreme poverty and deprivation. While the account below deals with the pre-lockdown days, it can be seen clearly from this account how difficult lockdown can be in a community like this which suffers from lack of basic needs even in normal times.
  The predominant reality of this (…)