Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Russian Revolution: A Century of Historic Lessons

  26 December 2016, by Anil Rajimwale

  The observance of a century of the Russian Revolution has begun on November 7 this year. This article is being published in that connection.
  No other revolution has so deeply impacted the world as the great Russian Revolution. It has begun its hundred years in November this year. It continues to be a reference-point on crucial issues. Every revolution deeply influences history: English revolution (1688), American (1776), French (1789) etc. The Russian Revolution moulded the people and (…)

• End of an Iconic Revolutionary Phase in Post-WW II

  26 December 2016

  TRIBUTE
  by Vijay Kumar
  The death of Fidel Castro has marked the end of an iconic revolutionary phase of the post-Second World War era. Fidel Castro was a hero of generations of students of history and politics, especially for students in DU and JNU. Castro and Che Guevara of Argentina were two profoundly heroic revolutionaries of the second half of the twentieth century. In fact, I have all along differed with Left intellectuals and Marxist scholars as I put Castro and Che Guevara on a (…)

• Triple talaaq is neither constitutional nor a Quranic form of divorce

  26 December 2016

  by Irfan Engineer
  The observations of the Allahbad High Court on December 8 stating that the Muslim personal law on triple talaaq didn’t give unbridled authority to a Muslim male to unilaterally divorce his wife would be welcomed by Muslim women who have been victims of misuse of the provision in particular, and to Muslim women in general, who face the threat of capricious use of the authority not granted to men by the Quran.
  Though the Court refused to comment on the legality of triple (…)

• Governance, Resources and Livelihoods of Adivasis in India

  26 December 2016, by C.H. Hanumantha Rao

  The following is the author’s valedictory address at the National Seminar on ‘Governance, Resouruces and Livelihoods of Advasis in India: Implementation of PESA and FRA’, organised by the S.R. Sankaran Chair at the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad, November 19, 2016.
  The Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996—applicable to Schedule V areas in 10 States—empowers Gram Sabhas to manage forest lands and community resources, including (…)

• Historical Materialism and a Relook at the “Tribal Question” in India

  26 December 2016

  by Murzban Jal
  The overthrow of mother right was the world-historic defeat of the female sex. The man seized the reigns of the house also; the woman was degraded, enthralled, the slave of the man’s lust, a mere instrument for breeding children. —Frederick Engels, The Origin of Private Property, Family and the State
  Much that is written about the caste system has reference mostly to the caste system among the Savarna Hindus. Very little is known about the Avarna Hindus. Who are the (…)

• Oraon Plantation Labour Agitation in the Duars: Remembrance of a centenary

  26 December 2016

  by Tapan Bandyopadhyay
  “Gajio Me Boo Rahegi Jab Tak Iman Ki/Tab To London Tak Chalegi Teg Hindustan Ki.” — Bahadur Shah Jafar, the last Mughal Emperor of India, refusing to ask for clemency and mercy
  Historians and chroniclers of all hues have written, analysed and formed their own pet theories about various peasant revolts in the Indian subcontinent beginning 1760 (after the Plassey defeat of Siraj-ud-daulah at the hands of the East India Company in 1757) extending upto the (…)

• Imperative Need to Protect and Promote Self-Reliance in S&T Today

  26 December 2016, by Ashok Parthasarathi

  The following is the speech by Prof Ashok Parthasarathi after accepting a volume of Festschrift (collection of writings in his honour) from the Vice-President, M. Hamid Ansari, at a function in New Delhi on November 15, 2016.
  It is a matter of great gratitude and gratification for me to the honoured today in my 75th year with a Festschirift. That I should have received the Festschrift from your hands, Mr VP, makes it a particularly unique honour for me.
  I do not know if you remember, Mr (…)

• A memorable chapter neglected in history: Ambedkar’s Odyssey to the Constituent Assembly of India through Bengal

  26 December 2016, by A K Biswas

  “Turn in any direction you like, caste is the monster that crosses your path. You cannot have political reform; you cannot have economic reforms unless you kill the monster.” — Dr B.R. Ambedkar,
  Annihilation of Caste
  The public parade of deplorable ignorance of some of the Members of Parliament from West Bengal about the election of Dr B.R. Ambedkar to the Constituent Assembly in 1946 while celebrating the first ever Constitution Day on November 26, 2015 in Parliament was shocking, if (…)

• Universalism and Social Equality: Relevance of the Brahmo Samaj Today

  26 December 2016

  by Malavika Nagarkar
  The following is the address by Malavika Nagarkar, the President of the Brahmo Conference, at the inaugural session of the 126th All India Brahmo Conference (New Delhi, November 12, 2016).
  I feel truly humbled as I stand here today to address this august congregation, in a position earlier held by some very highly eminent and venerated citizens of this great land, scholars and members of the Brahmo Samaj, and of society at large—persons who contributed to the (…)

• State of Affairs of Higher Education in India

  26 December 2016, by Sandeep Pandey

  In a country which neglects its school education can we expect a good quality higher education programme? All the governments, since the Kothari Commission’s recommendation of the Common School System was made in 1968, have successfully evaded implementation of the idea. With the adoption of the policies of privatisation, globalisation and liberalisation as part of the new economic policies since the early 1990s, two types of education system can clearly be discerned. The rich are sending (…)