Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Farmers’ Mann ki Baat | Sukumaran C.V.

  5 December 2020, by Sukumaran C.V.

  Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know But leechlike to their fainting country cling... —P.B.Shelley (sonnet England in 1819).
  Two centuries ago, the great poet Shelley told the Peterloo protesters, Who were agitating for greater Reforms and who were confronted By the charging cavalry of King George: “Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you- Ye are many- they are few.”[1] Oh! Farmers, you feed the (…)

• Only on a Sunday | L K Sharma

  5 December 2020, by L K Sharma

  by L K Sharma
  The poet teaches English literature, speaks at conferences, performs at literary festivals, restrains his daughter and takes his wife for a film after a scene.
  Wearing a rehearsed smile and gold-rimmed glasses, guides a comely PhD girl who loves poems and poets. During the hour, he plays with thoughts that stay unsaid and gestures that are never made.
  When time permits at night, he eyes the silvery full moon that quickly hides behind his large cost-benefit (…)

• 

  Book Review: Rowe-McCulloch on Enstad, ’Soviet Russians under Nazi Occupation: Fragile Loyalties in World War II’

  5 December 2020

  Johannes D. Enstad. Soviet Russians under Nazi Occupation: Fragile Loyalties in World War II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 272 pp. $99.99 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-108-42126-3; $32.99 (paper), ISBN 978-1-108-43166-8.
  Reviewed by Maris Rowe-McCulloch (University of Regina) Published on H-Russia (July, 2020) Commissioned by Oleksa Drachewych (Western University)
  Johannes Enstad’s Soviet Russians under Nazi Occupation: Fragile Loyalties in World War II is a history of the (…)

• 

  Audio: Interview with Sumit Guha on his 2019 book ’History and Collective Memory in South Asia, 1200-2000’ | Renee Garfinkel

  5 December 2020

  In this far-ranging and erudite exploration of the South Asian past, Sumit Guha discusses the shaping of social and historical memory in world-historical context.

• 

  Video: Dada and Surrealism - Europe After the Rain documentary (1978) | Mick Gold

  5 December 2020
• 

  Table of Contents - Mainstream, Nov 28, 2020

  28 November 2020

  * Bengal CPI(M) hounded by the old nostalgic obsession | Arun Srivastava
  * Bihar Elections, Owaisi and Political alliances | Ram Puniyani
  * Universal Basic Income in India Too? | Pulin B Nayak and Mark Lindley
  * South Africa: Migrant Labour After Apartheid Asanda-Jonas Benya

• Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, November 28, 2020

  28 November 2020

  Letter to The Readers, Mainstream, November 28, 2020
  November 26 which is the Constitution day was marked by a one day protest action by major workers organisations and trade union federations AITUC, HMS, CITU, INTUC, TUCC, SEWA, AICCTU, among others, to oppose the Anti-Labour policies of the Modi 2.0 government.
  Peasant organisations from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttrakhand and UP, which have since September 2020 agitated against the Farm Bills passed by the Central Government, (…)

• Bengal CPI(M) hounded by the old nostalgic obsession | Arun Srivastava

  28 November 2020, by Arun Srivastava

  by Arun Srivastava
  The echo of the Historical Blunder has started reverberating in the political circle, especially among the left parties. Some left intellectuals and activists have also started dusting the pre-Hyderabad party Congress comments of historian Irfan Habib, a CPM member since 1953, “party’s "absurd’’ tactical line on alliances, if adopted at the Hyderabad party congress next week, could push the Left movement to the sidelines of India’s polity.” In July 2016, he and his wife (…)

• Shrinking Democratic Space and Electoral Choices | Ram Puniyani

  28 November 2020

  by Ram Puniyani
  From last three decades or so the debate comes up intermittently as to whether Congress and BJP are two sides of the same coin. Many political parties; time and over again; have been taking up this formulation as a justification for Third front, which is away from BJP and Congress both. In previous Bengal elections, Congress-Left coalition did come up but could not muster a victory against Trinmool Congress. Currently such a choice is posed by many Dalit parties and lately (…)

• 

  Text of Editors Guild of India statement on criminal charges against Patricia Mukhim, editor of Shillong Times | Nov 22, 2020

  28 November 2020

  November 22, 2020: Editors Guild of India
  The Editors Guild of India is deeply concerned to see Padma Shri awardee and Editor of Shillong Times, Patricia Mukhim, being dragged through a cumbersome criminal charge procedure that is borne out of a complaint on one of her social media posts. The criminal complaint was filed in response to her Facebook post in July 2020 over a skirmish between tribal and non-tribal youth in Lawsohtun at a basketball court. Mukhim’s case is a reflection of the (…)