Mainstream Weekly

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  Debt relief for the poorest countries critical in fight against COVID-19

  11 April 2020

  Statement by UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore
  NEW YORK, 7 April 2020 – “COVID-19 is generating an unprecedented global economic crisis. And as we witness in all such crises, this economic destruction is cruelly and unequally distributed.
  “For the world’s poorest countries, the financial fallout caused by the pandemic, combined with debilitating debt-service obligations, are hampering their ability to prevent further transmission and protect citizens.
  “And for the families (…)

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  Eight months and counting: the world’s longest communications shutdown in Kashmir must end

  11 April 2020

  International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)
  7 April 2020
  Eight months and counting: the world’s longest communications shutdown in Kashmir must end
  April 5 will be 245 days since 4G mobile internet was suspended in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, causing immense hardship and disruption of civilian life as well as violating the public’s right to access information.
  This statement is published as part of IFJ-SAMSN’s campaign, Postcards from Kashmir. The outbreak of COVID-19 in (…)

• Corona and Migrant Sansculotttes

  11 April 2020, by Badri Raina

  via: Z Net, April 7, 2020
  Are you a migrant labourer,
  Escaping death by lockdown?
  Then trudge, O lifelong sansculottte,
  But with no hope of a town
  That may have food or water,
  Medicine or a bed
  To shore up your extraneous lives
  From hunger or viral dread.
  No train or plane may hurry you
  To your expectant slum;
  Trains and planes are meant for NRIs
  Who from fancy countries come.
  You are Hands not needed now
  When no profits circulate;
  And what efficient government ever gives (…)

• Locked Down and Locking in the New Global Order

  11 April 2020

  by Colin Todhunter
  On 12 March, British PM Boris Johnson informed the public that families would continue to “lose loved ones before their time” as the coronavirus outbreak worsens. He added: “We’ve all got to be clear, this is the worst public health crisis for a generation.” In a report, the Imperial College had warned of modelling that suggested over 500,000 would die from the virus in the UK. The lead author of the report, epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, has since revised the estimate (…)

• How the fight against coronavirus paves the way for technological authoritarianism

  11 April 2020

  .by Laurie Clarke The tracking of millions of citizens’ mobile phone data; widespread facial recognition; the threat of six-month prison sentences for breaking curfew. In normal times, such measures would be the hallmarks of a repressive authoritarian regime. But they are already being introduced in democracies to slow the spread of coronavirus.
  BT Group, which owns of the UK’s biggest mobile operator, EE, is reportedly in talks with the government about using the location data of its (…)

• In Ljubljana

  11 April 2020

  by Matthew Porges
  In a pandemic, some common-sense policies can closely resemble authoritarianism. Banning large public gatherings, for instance, is both a classic authoritarian move and a reasonable strategy to control the spread of the virus. This tension opens up an opportunity for would-be authoritarians to exploit the situation, using the pandemic as cover for implementing policies that would otherwise result in a lot more pushback, domestically and internationally. While the (…)

• COVID-19 and the opportunity to re-evaluate socialism

  11 April 2020

  by Deeptangshu Kar and Jagriti Pandey
  Ever since the Right to Food campaign has approached the Supreme Court of India, in what is commonly revered to as the right to food security petition, the relevance of the Essential Commodities Act 1955 has become more apparent. Food procurement and minimum price support to farmers are one of the finest examples of what a socialist state should do. In this article, the authors explain how the Essential Commodities Act is relevant to the pandemic, (…)

• India-Japan Relations

  11 April 2020, by Eduardo Faleiro

  Throughout history India-Japan relations have been devoid of any kind of dispute, ideological, cultural or territorial. Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, J.R.D Tata and Subhash Chandra Bose were among the Indians closely associated with Japan. Judge Radha Binod Pal was the Indian member appointed to the International Military Tribunal that tried Japanese war crimes alleged to have been committed during the Second World War. Among all judges of the Tribunal he was the only one who (…)

• Dr. B. R. Ambedkar: Tribute to a leader of the masses

  11 April 2020

  [It is the 127th birth anniversary of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar on 14 April 2020]
  o o
  by Dr. Atul Krishna Biswas
  As Member (Labour), Viceroy’s Executive Council, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar held from July 20, 1942 to June 29, 1946. These four years eleven months witnessed the social visionary’s intense nation building activities. This essay, as a tribute to his 127th birth anniversary, attempts at focusing the phase of his activities, over which widespread ignorance prevails.
  Part - I
  Dr Ambedkar (…)

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  Table of Contents Mainstream - Lockdown Edition No.2 | April 4

  4 April 2020

  Contents - Mainstream, VOL LVIII No 16 New Delhi, April 4, 2020 LETTER TO THE READERS - COVID 19 Lockdown Edition No.2 COVID 19 Crisis : Letters From Senior Former State Official to India’s Finance Minister and to the Prime Minister The Editors Guild of India is deeply perturbed over the recent government statement before the Supreme Court PUDR demands temporary decongestion of jails in view of COVID-19 public health crisis Bypassing PMNRF & Setting Up A New Fund Unnecessary- Statement (…)