Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

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  Arjun Dev: Scholar and Secular Historian

  18 April 2020

  by Malli Gandhi
  Many of us are deeply saddened by the sudden demise of Professor Arjun Dev on 22nd March, 2020 in New Delhi at the age of 82. As an individual and as a historian he has long been an inspiration to many people in National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) who have read his books and relished a close association with him. As a historian he inspired teachers, teacher educators and scholars in NCERT. He was a great influence for many faculty members in the (…)

• My Days in the IIIAS, Shimla: An Autobiographical Reflection in honour of the Late Professor K Raghavendra Rao

  18 April 2020

  by Kadayam Subramanian
  December 17, 2019 I was Visiting Fellow at the prestigious Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla from 1973 to 1975. A former IB official, I had decided to research the evolution of the communist movement in India. My inspiration came partly from the conversations I had earlier had with the inspirational friend and ‘Guru’ Dr. K. Raghavendra Rao Professor of Political Science, Karnatak University, Dharwad and also from my studies. I had a very useful time (…)

• Battling COVID-19: Truth and Untruth about North Korea

  18 April 2020, by Rajaram Panda

  Introduction
  Even when the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world claiming over 1 lakh fatalities, claims made by the most isolated country in the world North Korea has claimed zero fatality. The global death toll of the virus, termed as COVID-19 by the World Health Organisation crossed one lakh on April 11, barely 103 days after the organisation first heard of “mystery pneumonia” in Wuhan. North Korea could be one of the dozen nations in the world not yet invaded by the deadly virus, but (…)

• Russia: Citizens’ Impoverishment May Become Worse Than Covid-19

  18 April 2020

  Commentary by attorney Dmitriy Agranovskiy: Endemic Impoverishment of Russians May Become Worse Than the Coronavirus. The State Is Obliged To Support Its Citizens in a Difficult Situation
  Nowadays, they love giving all sorts of nastiness bright and sometimes romantic names. So, a combination of an unprecedented drop in oil prices with a similarly unprecedented epidemic of the coronavirus and no less unprecedented measures to combat it is called the "perfect storm." And this storm is (…)

• COVID -19 and Economic Shocks: An Analysis in Indian Context

  18 April 2020

  by Dr. Manish Sharma & Dr. Vinod Sharma
  Introduction
  Coronavirus Disease -2019 declared by the World Health organization (WHO) as pandemic, is causing economic malaise as well as human distress both at the micro and macro level. The economists across the world are not only gauging the fall outs of this global menace but also making strenuous efforts to pace in new palliatives to salvage the collapsing economy from further disaster. Notwithstanding their theoretical (…)

• Ambedkar’s Contribution to Democracy in India

  18 April 2020

  by Dr. Manas Behera
  Introduction
  At present we need to learn from the ideas and struggles of Ambedkar than any periods of our history if we want to strengthen, deepen democracy in India and to democratize the already weakened democratic system. Ambedkar has become more relevant than he was during his times and there lies his greatness and the greatness of his ideas. Ambedkar is already an icon in contemporary times of our society. He became an all-India leader and today he has no caste (…)

• Interrogating Our ‘Poisoned’ Time

  18 April 2020, by Arup Kumar Sen

  David Arnold, the eminent historian of Subaltern Studies, wrote a seminal book titled Toxic Histories: Poison and Pollution in Modern India (Cambridge University Press, South Asian Edition, 2017). He quoted Rachel Carson’s classic statement in the book- We live in ‘a new age of toxicity’. In this context, Arnold noted the emergence of a ‘toxic discourse’ and the ‘fear of a poisoned world’. In his book, Arnold, along with other issues, dealt with ‘poison panics’ and their association with (…)

• (La Pesadilla): The Nightmare or COVID 19 and the Specter of Communism

  18 April 2020

  by Murzban Jal
  While there was already a "New Normal" that arose with totalitarian states formed globally in the last decade for whom the "love for lies", as opposed to philosophy’s "love of truth", became the dominant social, political, ideological and cultural order; Covid 19—the terroristic Invisible Enemy said to be quite akin to Communism and Islam—shifted not only how one imagines global societies, but shifted the complete order of international capitalism. On one hand, following (…)

• Moving in a blind alley

  18 April 2020

  by Arun Srivastava
  A bleak future stares at India’s economic revival. The country which has been deep in the slowdown before the outbreak of the coronavirus, will find it tough to come out of the economic crisis once the corona curve flattens and situation turns normal. Already the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has come out with a report that COVID-19 crisis has the potential to push around 40 crore informal sector workers in India deeper into poverty, with the lockdown and (…)

• Mutilation of CSR is bad in law

  18 April 2020

  by Sankar Ray
  Two recent decisions on the allocation of funds, earmarked under the ‘corporate social responsibility [CSR] by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), on 10 April 2020 are tantamount to an illegal drive through a mere notification which has been drawn outside the ambit of law and also on such a point. The MCA is strangely (if not deliberately forgotten that it trespassed into a State subject as per the Constitution of India. “Public health and sanitation; hospitals and (…)