Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

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  CJA warns against misuse of emergency powers to silence independent media coverage of the global pandemic

  25 April 2020

  DOCUMENT
  The Commonwealth Journalists Association is deeply concerned that some Commonwealth member states have responded to the coronavirus pandemic by assuming extraordinary powers which may have the effect of criminalising the work of journalists and arbitrarily restricting the ability of the news media to scrutinise the actions of governments and report in the public interest. The CJA calls on the governments of all member states to support the critical role of independent media in (…)

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  On high handed ways of law enforcement agencies in Jammu & Kashmir -Statement by the Editors Guild of India - April 21, 2020

  25 April 2020

  DOCUMENT
  April 21, 2020
  The Editors Guild of India has noted with shock and concern the high-handed manner in which the law enforcement agencies in Jammu & Kashmir have used the prevailing laws to deal with two Srinagar-based journalists, Masrat Zahra, a young freelance photographer, and Peerzada Ashiq, a reporter working for The Hindu. While only an FIR has been filed in connection with a report filed by Peerzada Ashiq, the authorities in the union territory have used the Unlawful (…)

• Covid-19 has a grandma, grandpa and great grandpa. Where are they?

  25 April 2020, by M K Bhadrakumar

  April 21, 2020
  The search for the genesis of Covid-19 is developing into an epic story. Thanks to the insinuations by the US President Donald Trump — ‘China virus’, ‘Wuhan virus’, etc. — that were explosive in their political and strategic content, Beijing is now more determined than ever to get to the bottom of the story.
  Which is a good thing, because now that Beijing has been touched to the quick and is turbo-charged this story will appear in the public domain sooner rather than (…)

• The Truth Is: We Are Meaningless

  25 April 2020, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Sardar Patel’s statue at Ahmedabad was recently advertised for sale at Rs. 30,000 crore by "unknown persons." Clearly it was someone’s idea of a joke and could have been dismissed as such. But the quality of humour is strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain for only the cultured. It blesseth him that provides comedy and him that enjoys it. But it curses those bereft of a sense of humour, politicians for example. No wonder the politicians of Gujarat filed an FIR against (…)

• Corona Virus, the economy and immunity

  25 April 2020, by Kobad Ghandy

  In these days of technology, mass hysteria spreads like wildfire, throughout the world, particularly when it is promoted by the rulers and/or religion. Ganapati drinking milk was one example; the skylab falling was another. There were many more such phobia like even the Y2K crisis. In Jharkhand jail a tribal told me that even in their backward villages people stared cutting all their goats and having feasts daily as they thought the world was coming to an end by Dec 31 2000.
  It is an old (…)

• The Trails of a Blood-Sucking Vampire: Ingredients of COV19 Pandemic Analysis

  25 April 2020

  by Prof. Atanu Sengupta, Dr. Sanjoy De, Dr. Anirban Hazra, Ujjwal Seth
  Introduction
  “….indeed, nothing was to be seen but waggons and carts, with goods, women, servants, children, &c.; coaches filled with people of the better sort and horsemen attending them, and all hurrying away;” A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel, Defoe (1722)
  Man has long experience of epidemics in the past (The Black Death in Europe, the Great Bubonic Plague, the 1918 Bombay Spanish flu and many more). (…)

• Agricultural and lockdown for covid19: Some preliminary evidences from rural India

  25 April 2020

  by Atanu Sengupta and Asish Kumar Pal
  Abstract: As we have already acknowledged that India is developing economy, it is stated as an economy passing through demand depression and high unemployment. With an increasing number of coronavirus case, they government has lockdown transport services, closed all economy without some some necessary and urgent sectors, factories, public and private offices and restricted mobilisation. No doubt it would slowdown the supply side. At the time of boro (…)

• Stalked by coronavirus, hounded by the state, losing jobs: Is nobody looking out for Indian journalists?

  25 April 2020

  The post-pandemic media scene is grim, with fewer jobs and shrinking spaces to report without fear
  by Kalpana Sharma
  April 23, 2020
  When journalists and journalism become the news, we need to be concerned.
  In the course of the last 72 hours, three journalists in Kashmir have been slapped with cases, two under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for posts on social media and the other for reporting "factually incorrect" news.
  While such cases and intimidation by the (…)

• Distancing Untouchability: Don’t use "social distancing", the term has horrifying history

  25 April 2020

  Date: 19/04/2020 To, Hon. Shri. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India Respected Sir, When the entire world is engaged in fighting the pandemic unleashed by the Corona Virus, the people of our country have responded with utmost commitment to the public appeals you made form time to time. 1. You did well in addressing the country three times for gearing India towards the fight against the pandemic. We feel distressed that in your appeals you chose to use the expression ’Social (…)

• Reading and Contesting Mass Psychology of Communalism

  25 April 2020, by Arup Kumar Sen

  In his thought-provoking book, Gramsci, Culture and Anthropology (University of California Press, 2002), Kate Crehan reminded us that the Italian Marxist thinker, Antonio Gramsci, posed the question of developing a “national-popular collective will” in the context of a Note “discussing the form a modern revolutionary movement should take”.
  The paradox lies in the fact that the Hindu Right in contemporary India is trying to develop a “national-popular collective will”, which has distinct (…)