Mainstream Weekly

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  Review by Devaki Jain of Amartya Sen’s Home in the world - A memoir

  7 August 2021, by Devaki Jain

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Devaki Jain
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  Home in the World: A Memoir
  by Amartya Sen
  Imprint; Allen Lane
  Penguin Random House
  July, 2021
  480 pages
  ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1846144868
  ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1846144868
  available via Amazon
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  In Home in the World, Amartya Sen, a dear friend and contemporary, has achieved the impossible. We are with him in Shantiniketan savouring its unique ambience. Tagore is there, and encourages our brave Amartya to improve his competence in Sanskrit. At (…)

• Athlete Ila Mitra missed the 1940 Olympics, but became an indomitable peasant leader | Sohini Chattopadhyay

  7 August 2021

  by Sohini Chattopadhyay
  July 30, 2021
  Instead of sprinting in the 1940 Olympics, gifted athlete Ila Mitra was jailed and tortured for joining the famous Tebhaga peasant uprising in Bengal. Here is her story of immense courage
  In 1940, when Helsinki was preparing to host the 12th Summer Olympics and Europe was preparing for war, deputy accountant general Nagendranath Sen received news through his colonial administration network that his 15-year-old daughter, Ila, was being considered (…)

• Prashānt Mamatā as Rājdharma | Pradip Baksi

  7 August 2021

  by Pradip Baksi
  “Bā rayat sulh Kun wa’z jang i khasm aiman nishīn / Z’ānki Shāhinshāh i ādil rā rayat lashkar ast.” (“Be at peace with subjects and sit safe from the attacks of foes / Because his subjects are the army of a just Shāhinshāh.”)—Saʿdī Shīrāzī (1258), Golestān, Book I, Story 6, the last 2 lines; quoted in Roy 1832:118.
  1. This is a note about the contemporary importance of prashānt (quiet) mamatā (compassion) as rājdharma (principle for governance). This principle is (…)

• Mamata Banerjee into the Vedanta trap | Sankar Ray

  7 August 2021, by Sankar Ray

  Willy-nilly, the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has walked into the corporate trap of Vedanta Limited (erstwhile Vedanta Resources plc), incorporated in UK, an NRI Anil Agarwal-led group, diversified natural resources company with interests in zinc-lead-silver, Iron ore, steel, copper, aluminum, power, oil and gas and infamous for wanton violation of environmental norms. In 2018, mass protests against Vedanta’s Sterlite Copper subsidiary at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu for causing (…)

• Pandemic and the State: a Political Economy perspective | Banhi Baran Ghosh

  7 August 2021

  by Banhi Baran Ghosh*
  Abstract
  Pandemic engendered by Covid-19 rekindles the normative view of the Indian State. For more than two decades the State which has been embracing the ideology of neo-liberalism, suddenly has turned into advocating its transformative role in the guise of Dirgiste State. In this article an attempt has been made to recuperate the role of Indian State in this pandemic from a political economy perspective.
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  For more than one year we have been experiencing (…)

• The Lord Macaulay’s Minute, 1835: Re-examining the British Educational Policy | Ajit Mondal

  7 August 2021

  by Ajit Mondal *
  Development of education system during the British period was determined by the needs of the colonial powers. If we analyse the development, we will find that the colonial interests of the British always shaped the then educational policies of India. European trading companies began their commercial activities in India from 1600 A.D. Gradually the Portuguese, the French, the Dutch and the English settled in some parts and commercial centres of India. Among them the English (…)

• Intimations of Stupidity | Avay Shukla

  7 August 2021

  by Avay Shukla
  30 July 2021
  These last two weeks have been pretty confounding and humbling for me, both as a generic Indian and a stand-alone Shukla. It’s bad enough to be treated as an idiot by the government of the day, but it’s worse when you start suspecting that the government may be right after all. I no longer get Wordsworth’s intimations of immortality, what I sense now are Sambit Patra’s intimations of stupidity , thanks to Mr. Modi . His government has conveyed to all of (…)

• Ruthless times & Some Unusual People | Humra Quraishi

  7 August 2021, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  August 4, 2021
  The rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl child in the capital city of the country, New Delhi, is another of those reminders that we are living in dark-barbaric-ruthless times. Nah, no human form is safe and secure, in spite of all those governmental claims that there’s that machinery to look after the welfare and well-being of the citizens. Bogus seem those hollow assurances and tall claims.
  Correct me if I’m wrong but only a very small percentage of the rape (…)

• An Enigma Called Gorky | M R Narayan Swamy

  7 August 2021, by M R Narayan Swamy

  by M R Narayan Swamy
  Was Maxim Gorky a Stalinist stooge? Did he embrace Bolshevism fully? Was he an apologist for Stalin’s crimes against fellow Russians? The questions have dogged the eminent and controversial Soviet writer for long. More than 150 years after his birth, there are no clear answers.
  Satyanarayan Sinha, an Indian revolutionary who went to Moscow to learn how to oust the British but quickly became disenchanted with the Soviet realities, met Gorky in southern Italy where the (…)

• Was Guru Dutt a Marxist? | Radhakanta Barik

  7 August 2021, by Radhakanta Barik

  by Radhakanta Barik *
  In the Bombay film world there was a Calcutta school of filmmaking. Prominent of them was Bimal Roy who had a command over each area of film making. Strong tradition of storytelling was the strength of these film makers. It depended on literary works. It did not believe in stereotype and it differs from one story to another. They did depend on cinematic language to tell the story. They had a command over each area of film making. Choreography, direction and (…)