Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The Convulsive Journey Of The Naga Peace Process: A Pursuit Towards Mutual Coexistence And Autonomy | Reet Balmiki

  8 April 2023

  by Reet Balmiki*
  The Naga insurgency finds it initial roots in issues associated with the identity and ethnicity of Nagas. Over time, the issue began to be perceived as having political overtones and is considered one of the most contested political issues which remain unresolved.
  The demand for an independent and sovereign Nagaland began even well before India’s independence during British Rule. In 1947, before independence, a delegation of Naga leaders expressed their refusal to (…)

• Should Khandayats Be Called Backward Again? | Radhakanta Barik

  8 April 2023, by Radhakanta Barik

  SOME IMPORTANT SOCIAL movements rode the back of the national freedom movement in India, beginning in the nineteenth century. These movements helped construct social collectives. The most important collectives were the Dalit fronts and the backward caste fronts. Although other collectives were also formed, like for women, tribals and Muslims, the more powerful ones were the Dalit and Backward Caste groupings. These fronts got strengthened with the spread of education and with their (…)

• Pakistan: Aurat March 2023 keeps going despite fierce social, religious and political opposition | Abdullah Zahid

  8 April 2023

  by Abdullah Zahid / Sapan News
  04 April 2023
  Through Aurat March and other forms of activism, Pakistani women are calling for gender equality, climate action and economic policies that benefit all. But their battle is up against fierce social, religious and political opposition.
  “We are constantly sold the narrative that our country is impoverished and that the system is broken,” says cultural activist Sheema Kermani.
  The longtime feminist activist and trained classical dancer, whose (…)

• Release of our colleague Evan Gershkovich! A letter from Russian independent journalists

  8 April 2023

  Медиазона
  4 April 2023
  Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) is accusing The Wall Street Journal correspondent, Evan Gershkovich, of espionage. He is currently being held in Lefortovo prison in Moscow. Independent journalists from Russia and other countries believe that this is a politically motivated case and demand Gershkovich’s immediate release. Together with TV Rain, Meduza, and Echo of Moscow, Mediazona is publishing this open letter.
  If you are a journalist and wish to sign (…)

• How low-paid workers in Madagascar power French tech’s AI ambitions | Clément Le Ludec & Maxime Cornet

  8 April 2023

  by Clément Le Ludec & Maxime Cornet *
  March 30, 2023
  A January 2023 investigation by Time magazine revealed that Kenyan workers paid less than US$2 an hour were given the job of trying to ensure that the data used to train the AI platform ChatGPT was free from discriminatory content.
  AI models need to be trained, with the input of an enormous critical mass of data, for them to learn to recognise and interact with the human environment. These inputs need to be collected, sorted, (…)

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  Arbitrary suspension of social media accounts of several journalists and media organisations | Statement by Editors Guild (April 3, 2023) in Punjab

  8 April 2023

  The Editors Guild of India
  PRESS STATEMENT
  3rd April, 2023
  The Editors Guild of India is deeply concerned about the arbitrary suspension of social media accounts of several journalists and media organisations in Punjab over the last few days. The official Twitter account of BBC Punjabi was withheld on March 27, though it was restored later in the day. Similarly, social media accounts of a senior staffer at the Indian Express as well as some other prominent journalists were also (…)

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  Statement by Concerned Historians on the Recent Changes Made by the NCERT in School Textbooks (April 7, 2023)

  8 April 2023

  Date: 07.04.2023
  The recent decision of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to drop entire chapters from the history textbooks for class 12, as well as from other classes and to delete statements from other textbooks is a matter of deep concern. Using the period of the pandemic-cum-lockdowns to argue that there was a need to lighten the load of the curriculum, the NCERT initiated a contentious process of dropping topics like the history of the Mughal courts, (…)

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  Reverse Deletions in NCERT Text Books - Statement from CPI (M)

  8 April 2023

  Communist Party of India (Marxist)
  Date: April 6, 2023
  The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:
  The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) strongly condemns the efforts by the government to change the syllabus of history through the NCERT text books.
  The NCERT chief’s specious argument that this has been done to rationalize the syllabus and reduce the burden on the students is totally misleading and is part of a (…)

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  Solidarity with the ongoing struggle for justice & accountability in Joshimath! - Statement by Campaign To Defend Nature And People

  8 April 2023

  Not natural but development policy-induced disasters in the Himalaya!
  Solidarity with the ongoing struggle for justice and accountability in Joshimath!
  A call for a campaign to defend nature and people from destructive development!
  Towards an ecosystem-based human rights approach to development!
  We as representatives of diverse social and environmental groups from across the country express grief and concern for the people of Joshimath, facing forced displacement from their homes in (…)

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  Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Struggle: Inside Stories | Deepti Priya Mehrotra

  8 April 2023, by Deepti Priya Mehrotra

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Deepti Mehrotra __0__
  Japanese Management, Indian Resistance: The Struggles of the Maruti Suzuki Workers By Anjali Deshpande and Nandita Haksar
  Speaking Tiger, Harper Collins https://speakingtigerbooks.com/ 2023 / 366 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9354474446 | ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9354474446 __0__
  Real Stories: Behind the scenes
  Maruti Suzuki workers have been in the public eye, largely due to the death of a manager, on 18 July 2012. Worker-management tension seemed to snowball (…)