2020

by Badre Alam Khan
Since the announcement of stringent national lockdown across the world in general and India in particular, amidst Covid-19, gender-based violence (in the forms of sexual harassment, physical, sexual, mental and emotional sufferings) has now been increased significantly in the domestic sphere. In this respect, the WHO (World Health Organization), UN (United Nations) General Secretary and several Human Rights and women’s organizations have expressed their deep concern and (…)

LETTER TO THE READERS - COVID 19 Lockdown Edition No.11 - 6 June | The Editor Mainstream Tiananmen Square Massacre of 4 June 1989: The Chinese Communist Party Crushed the Dreams of A Citizens Movement for Democratisation - A documentary Film Remembering Tiananmen - A poem by Vikram Seth Pandemic and the Reverse Migration of Labour in India | Sunanda Sen NCoV19 and Selling India Inc. Model of Self-Reliance with Local Rhetoric | D M Diwakar A Sceptre is Haunting the World | Kobad Ghandy (…)

Letter to Readers - Mainstream, June 6 2020
It is disturbing to see the Delhi police on a wild goose chase against all sections of people who are being picked up for having had a connection with the Anti-CAA protests. Incidentally, the President of the National Federation of Indian Woman Aruna Roy in her message on the 67th founding anniversary of NFIW on June 4th has highlighted the present government’s attack on freedom of expression and called for a sustained campaign against the (…)

Tremble and Obey a documentary film by the Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). It includes interviews with many of the key participants of the protest movement who were subsequently placed on China’s ‘most wanted’ list.

Remembering Tiananmen
No miracle will ever clean
The memory, bestial and obscene,
Of those who, having fouled their trust,
Grew warped with dread and powerlust—
And ordered fire on the square,
On unarmed people everywhere,
Brave people seeking to be free
Of rottenness, of tyranny.
— Vikram Seth
[This poem was published in The Times of India on June 6, 1989. It is being reproduced—courtesy The Times of India—in memory of the Tiananmen martyrs.]

The current predicaments faced by of India’s migrant labour - losing livelihood and shelter in urban areas as started with the 4-hour notice for a complete shutdown in response to the Pandemic - will remain as one of the worst humanitarian crisis the country has ever faced since independence. The gruesome details of the sufferings by masses of the uprooted people lacking access to shelter, food or sources of income or even means of transport to take them back to places they came from, (…)

by D M Diwakar
Context
The 2019 Novel Corona Virus (2019-nCoV) pandemic detected from Wuhan (China) has created unprecedented crises before the world economy and society. Since a vaccine to combat this virus was yet to be developed by the world medical science communities, the World Health Organization (WHO) circulated region specific general health emergency guidelines (WHO, 2020) after outbreak of 2019-nCoV pandemic in China in December 2019. Testing, Tracing, Tracking, Sanitizing, (…)

“The Risk of a new Great Depression, worse than the original is rising by the day”.—Nouriel Roubini
“This could morph into a financial crisis. We will see higher default rates and business failures. It could be like the 1930s”. —Carmen Reinhart (Prof. of Economics & Finance at Harvard Kennedy’s School of Govt.)
“Worst Financial Crisis since the Great Depression of 1929”. —CNBC veteran analyst
Jim Richards, former advisor to the CIA and Pentagon as also the Fed, has (…)

by Tarun Kumar Basu
Economic pain deepens in rural India for massive attack of COVID-19 even though stimulus financial packages announced by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and assured free food,fuel and a regular cash transfer for the poor.
But the question arises whether the announcement of programs in press conference by the Finance Minister is sufficient for livelihood of the rural people in the country. The experts say that it depends upon the effectiveness and (…)

While discussing ‘The Secret of Primitive Accumulation’ in Capital, Vol. 1, Karl Marx observed: “The primitive accumulation plays in Political Economy about the same part as original sin in theology”. In the history of primitive accumulation, Marx identified “those moments when great masses of men are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence...” Marx’s characterisation of primitive accumulation is organically connected with his analysis of the logic of Capital: “The (…)