2020

Keith Makoto Woodhouse. The Ecocentrists: A History of Radical Environmentalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. 392 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-16588-4
Reviewed by Anna Kramer (University of Colorado)
(August, 2020)
One of our central tasks as historians is to take our subjects seriously, and Keith Makoto Woodhouse does just that in The Ecocentrists: A History of Radical Environmentalism, successfully wrestling with the ideas and methods of radical environmentalists (…)

With the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons (TPNW) receiving its 50th ratification last week, and scheduled to go into force in 90 days, there is a lingering fear as to the effectiveness of these treaties, particularly when the world’s nine nuclear powers stand defiant or are openly violating these treaties.

by Archishman Raju
We lost a great fighter for freedom, E.S. Reddy, on November 1st. I had first come in contact with E.S. Reddy as part of the yearlong celebration of W.E.B Du Bois organized by the Saturday Free School in Philadelphia in 2018. Subsequently, I became familiar with his works, explaining Gandhi’s struggle in South Africa, and the role of poor and working Indians in Gandhi’s satyagraha there. As someone who dedicated his life to fighting apartheid in South Africa and in that (…)

by Sarah Aziza
October 30, 2020
Trapped in crowded, unsafe accommodations with little access to health care, millions have been abruptly deprived of income.
On March 20, Susmi Gurung, a 29-year-old migrant worker from Nepal, began her day as usual. She awoke in the room she shared with nine other employees of Transguard Group, the United Arab Emirates–based company that had placed her in customer service at the Dubai International Airport nearly three years prior. The room was one of (…)

Table of Contents - Mainstream, VOL LVIII No 46, New Delhi, October 31, 2020 Letter to the readers, Mainstream, October 31, 2020 Bihar Assembly Elections 2020: “Missing” Women in the Party Manifestos | Anamika Priyadarshini and Sonmani Choudhary Fault Lines and Contours of Alliance in Bihar assembly elections 2020 | Nisha Mishra Uncultured way of promoting culture | T J S George India drifts into autocracy, nonviolent protest is the most powerful resistance | Amartya Sen Tribute to President (…)

The past week saw Bihar, one of India’s biggest States going to polls. So far only the first round of polling has taken place and two more rounds are left before the poll ends. There was a huge surge of young people seen at the rallies organised by the Opposition alliance. It is very difficult to say if the mass numbers observed at these rallies will translate into votes. The big subject of discussion at the poll rallies was the question of jobs. The unemployment rate in Bihar remains higher (…)

by Anamika Priyadarshini and Sonmani Choudhary *
The Bihar Assembly Elections is the first poll being conducted in India since the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic. This three-phased assembly election for 253 seats will be over on November 7th and the results are likely to be announced on November 10th. One of the commonly referred point about Bihar elections has been women voters’ constantly rising turnout in the past four assembly elections. Women voters’ proportion has been on rise since (…)

Free and fair elections are considered to be an essential component of healthy democracy. It is through this process the interests of the common are served by the government. The Bihar assembly election of 2020 is the recent buzz around every corner of India. Taking place in the backdrop of the pandemic, the tussle between the contesting parties is growing with massive processions and rallies and hoodwinking the public.
Issues such as unemployment, poverty, inadequate health infrastructure (…)

IMPRESSIONS
Plans to change Lutyen’s Delhi into Modian Delhi struck most Indians as ludicrously boastful. The plans have not been given up. Leaders who want to be seen as historically important figures never give up plans to project themselves.
Which explains why the Government of India is promoting “a holistic study of the origin and evolution of Indian culture over the past 12,000 years.”
A Committee was set up in 2016 by a minister called Mahesh Sharma, notorious for dim-witted (…)

by Amartya Sen
The Hindu nationalist regime has cultivated religious animosity – undermining the nation’s secular traditions
Nothing is as important, the philosopher Immanuel Kant claimed, as the “freedom to make public use of one’s reason on all matters”. Unfortunately, as Kant also noted, the opportunity to argue is often restrained by society – sometimes very severely. A disturbing fact about the world today is that authoritarian tendencies have been strikingly on the increase in many (…)