Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• COVID Crisis and Cultivation: Looming Agrarian Disaster in India

  23 May 2020

  by Annapurna and Navneet Sharma
  “Which scientist or doctor is not secretly praying for a miracle? Which priest is not – secretly, at least – submitting to science?” — Arundhati Roy
  The covid -19 and ensuing crisis, in all domains of human life whether social, political or economic is going to be a juncture where the life, empathy, development and harmony will also be studied in pre and post covid phases. This humongous crisis will also have its impact on the basic requirements for (…)

• Relief in the Package

  23 May 2020

  by Suranjita Ray
  It is perturbing that it took a pandemic to realise that ‘right to life’ and ‘right to livelihood’ are not dichotomous. Though policy makers are struggling to balance the priorities of public health and economic well-being during a pandemic and nationwide lockdown, reports across the country reveal extreme hardships for a large segment of society whose survival is under threat. A big challenge unparalleled in several decades is the loss of resources of livelihood in the (…)

• Empowering City Governments Is Key To India’s Fight Against COVID-19

  23 May 2020

  by Soumyadip Chattopadhyay, Arjun Kumar, Simi Mehta
  The impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic have already laid bare the shortcomings of Indian cities in addressing urban densification and inadequate provision of urban basic services including drinking water and sanitation. This pandemic has affected the urban poor more than anyone else. Health experts have opined that the citizens need to think in terms of living with this virus for at least two years. With the inevitable easing of the (…)

• COVID -19: Repercussions on the Human Security of Bangladesh

  23 May 2020

  by Debtanu Majee
  Introduction
  The outbreak of COVID-19 in December at the Wuhan province of China escalated a new crisis of human security. Being a communicable disease it has spread globally and was termed as a pandemic by the World Health Organisation. With no exceptions, the people of Bangladesh are also infected by COVID-19. As a result, the country was shut down from 26th March 2020. In this article, it is argued that the occurrence of COVID-19 in Bangladesh will enhance the (…)

• Impact of Covid-19 and OPEC+ on Russia

  23 May 2020

  by R.G.Gidadhubli
  Russia occupies second place behind the United States in the world, in terms of total infections due to Covid-19 virus with confirmed cases numbering 272,043 on 17th May 2020 and death toll of 2,537. Hence from sixth rank in March, Russia emerged as second rank in May 2020. Moreover, Russia has also hit the headlines since several high ranking political leaders have been infected by Covid -19, which has been a matter of great concern for Russia. There were reports in the (…)

• Progressive International - the new offensive against imperialism of neo-liberal finance capital

  23 May 2020

  by Sankar Ray
  Progressives the world over — democrats, libertarians and the Left — look eagerly forward to the inaugural Summit of the Progressive International (PI) in Reykjavik, Iceland, hosted by the Prime Minister of Iceland and the Left-Green Movement in the September this year. The process began in the ending months of 2018 at a meeting between the US Senator Bernie Sanders, representing the Sanders Institute and former finance minister of Greece Yanis Varoufakis on behalf of the (…)

• US rhetoric about nuclear arms in Europe harms Russia-NATO relations — diplomat

  23 May 2020

  TASS, 19 May, 20
  Earlier US ambassador in Warsaw Georgette Mosbacher said the US might redeploy its nuclear weapons from Germany to Poland
  MOSCOW, May 19. /TASS/. US rhetoric over the redeployment of American nuclear weapons from Germany to Poland is a factor worsening relations between Russia and NATO, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in response to a statement by US ambassador in Warsaw Georgette Mosbacher about the possibility of bringing NATO’s nuclear (…)

• Parade’s End | Sadakat Kadri

  23 May 2020

  by Sadakat Kadri
  11 May 2020
  Before the lockdown began, I had been hoping to celebrate VE Day in Belarus this weekend. Within a year of winning power in 1994, Alexander Lukashenko organised a march in Minsk to commemorate victory in the Great Patriotic War, and it’s become a quinquennial tradition.
  Events intervened. Curiosity ceased to be a reasonable excuse for leaving home in the UK, and Belarus requires foreign visitors to isolate themselves for 14 days. If that suggests the (…)

• USA: An Open Letter to the New New Left From the Old New Left

  23 May 2020

  Now it is time for all those who yearn for a more equal and just social order to face facts.
  By Former leaders of the Students for a Democratic Society
  April 16, 2020
  “THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country....
  “...[L]ay your shoulders to the wheel; ... Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the (…)

• is the Indian state proxying for the Hindutva project of militarization of the majority?

  23 May 2020, by Shamsul Islam

  Presently, the Indian defence paraphernalia is ranked as the fourth mightiest army in the world after USA, Russia and China with Japan at the fifth place. It has approximately 3,544,000 on roll, 1,444,000 being on active duty with 2,100,000 as reserve personnel. It is credited with innumerable military operations of glory like Bangladesh War 1971, Kargil War 1999, surgical strikes in Pakistan occupied Kashmir 2019 etc. Indian Army rendered direct help to the Sri Lankan State in suppressing (…)