Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Laughing Matter!

  5 March 2018

  [Recently there was a hue and cry over the laughter emitted by Ms Renuka Chowdhury during the speech of the Prime Minister in the Rajya Sabha. Laughter or a cackle is a freedom of expression. But, if the source is a woman, it brings to the fore many uncomfortable truths in a patriarchal society. In this context, I’ve composed the following poem.— A.K.D.]
  Is laughter gender-neutral? How is a woman supposed to laugh, precisely while giving vent to her cackle?
  Should she sound boisterous, (…)

• A Curious Case of ‘Hajamat’ : FRDI Bill Bail-in Section 52

  5 March 2018, by S G Vombatkere

  The Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI) Bill, 2017 is intended to resolve the financial distress that may develop in financial institutions (called “financial service providers”), specifically in banks. It is also intended to provide a basis for providing depositors in banks with a degree of assurance that a specified minimum of deposits will be secure in the event of a financial crisis in the bank. The method of doing this is by raising a Resolution Corporation (RC) with (…)

• How not to Facelift Culture

  5 March 2018, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Indian literature is the richer for the election of Chandrasekhara Kambar as President of the Sahitya Akademi. The sad part of the story is that the distinguished Oriya writer, Pratibha Ray, was put up as a political opponent and was defeated at the polls. A novelist and academician of international fame, her commitment to a classless, casteless social order had led to her being called a Communist at one stage. How such a person ended up as part of the Sangh Parivar’s scheme to (…)

• Union Budget 2018-19: Alleviating Farmers’ Distress

  5 March 2018

  by P.K. Bhargava and Jyoti Bhargava
  In the process of diversification of the Indian economy, the contribution of agriculture to GDP has tended to decline and presently its share is only around 17 per cent. However, the agricultural sector continues to be the largest employer in the economy (about 48 per cent in total employment) and a source of livelihood for a majority of the population, The sector, therefore, continues to be the soul of the Indian economy as also for the people of India. (…)

• Venezuela Lurches into Further Crisis: OAS Fails to Consensually Assist The Country

  5 March 2018

  by Gautam Sen
  The Venezuelan Government, headed by President Nicolas Maduro, has been contending with a severe political and economic crisis practically for the past nearly two years. There is a huge continuing tussle between the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) regime of President Maduro, which assumed power in April 2013 in the aftermath of the popular Bolivarian leader, Hugo Chavez’s death earlier that year, and the Opposition political parties grouped into United Democratic (…)

• Recalling Goa’s Opinion Poll

  5 March 2018, by Eduardo Faleiro

  We celebrate this year the Golden Jubilee of the Opinion Poll. After its liberation there were two opposite points of view regarding the status for Goa. The Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party wanted the merger of Goa into Maharashtra whilst the United Goans Party and Congress held that Goa should not merge into Maharashtra. The arguments in favour of merger were that Goa was too small to administer itself, its effective administration would be possible only if it were part of a larger State and (…)

• Might of Technology

  5 March 2018

  by Samit Kar
  The might of Technology had been a major pre-condition in the rise and fall of Socialism in many countries of the world including the Soviet Union and East European nations. But there is hardly any Marxist scholar and practitioner who had delved into this matter to ascertain the critical potential of the state-of-the-art technology to determine the opportunity and crisis plaguing Socialism. The completion of 100 years of the Bolshevik Revolution led by V.I. Lenin under the (…)

• The Emergency Era and Surrender of Judiciary

  5 March 2018

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Hemaadri Singh Rana
  The Case That Shook India by Prashant Bhushan; Penguin Random House India Pvt. Ltd.; 2017; pp. 314; ISBN: 9780670090051; Rs 499.
  Fortytwo years ago, a High Court judgement brought the entire country to a standstill. The judgement was passed against the then Prime Minister of India, Mrs Indira Gandhi, who was held guilty of corrupt practices during the 1971 elections and debarred from holding any government position for a period of six years. As the (…)

• Prabodh Panda Is No More

  5 March 2018

  On February 27, 2018, former Lok Sabha Member Prabodh Panda, 72, who was the Secretary of the CPI’s West Bengal State Council, breathed his last after a massive heart attack in the morning at the CPI’s State headquarters in Bhupesh Bhavan, Kolkata.
  The national President of the All India Kisan Sabha and the All India Anganwadi Workers Union, he was a member of the CPI’s National Executive and National Council.
  Elected to the 13th Lok Sabha from West Bengal’s Purva Medinipur district, (…)

• 

  The Cry for Bank Privatisaton

  23 February 2018

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  One can of worms after another is opening in the banking industry. If a diamond merchant has defrauded public sector banks of over eleven thousand crore rupees, or a liquor baron of nine thousand crore rupees, there are smaller operators whose ‘modest’ achievements have been under four thousand crore rupees. As these skeletons tumble out of the NDA cupboard, there is a strident cry for privatising the banking industry. The Assocham has demanded privatisation, big (…)