Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• End the “Green” Delusions: Industrial-scale Renewable Energy is Fossil Fuel+ | Alexander Dunlap

  25 June

  Industrial-scale renewable energy does nothing to remake exploitative relationships with the earth, and instead represents the renewal and expansion of the present capitalist order.
  Renewable energy is not the solution we think it is. We have inherited the bad/good energy dichotomy of fossil fuels versus renewable energy, a holdover from the environmental movement of the 1970’s that is misleading, if not false. Fossil fuels are correctly understood to be at the heart of capitalism, (…)

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  Sustained from Below: Dalit Women and the Ambedkarite Movement’s Limits of Liberation 
| Theertha Praveen Panachoor

  25 June

  BOOK REVIEW 1. The Prisons We Broke, Baby Kamble, trans. Maya Pandit. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2008. 2. We Also Made History: Women in the Ambedkarite Movement, Urmila Pawar and Meenakshi Moon, trans. Wandana Sonalkar. New Delhi: Zubaan, 2008. 
The history of the Ambedkarite movement in India has largely been written as a history of its leadership. Its constitutional achievements, its formal organisations and its founding figure are well documented. What has received far less attention is (…)

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  Video Recording: Zia Bhai 100th year —Remembering the Communist Party Office in Allahabad (2006) | Sohail Akbar

  25 June

  Play
  Zia 100th year: Remembering the Allahabad Party Office. by Sohail Akbar https://youtu.be/iJu8V8EVSyU?si=vJ5zWEaIA1FP7uq2

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  Music: Habibi Funk - Charif Megarbane - Dreams of an Insomniac (Lebanon 2025)

  25 June

  Play
  Habibi Funk // حبيبي فنك : Charif Megarbane - Dreams of an Insomniac (Lebanon 2025) by Habibi Funk https://youtu.be/w7GVbCnftnQ?si=yaq3fbuENVNlu_N1

• For US, Trade, QUAD matters more than human rights in India | John Dayal

  12 June, by John Dayal

  June 1, 2026
  Christians in India, some of who were expecting that visiting United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio will carry their appeal for revocation of FCRA cancellations to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government are really disappointed that he only murmured worshipful platitudes at the Grave of Mother Teresa in Kolkata, and said even less at his meetings in Delhi during the day.
  We do not know what he told Mr Modi in private at the PMO, but it is unlikely the matter of (…)

• Precarity of Border-Crossing People in West Bengal | Arup Kumar Sen

  12 June, by Arup Kumar Sen

  The recent change in the ruling political regime in West Bengal has intensified surveillance and control of the Bangladesh border in different districts. The Telegraph reported (June 4, 2026) in this context: “The Suvendu Adhikari government continued to move forward with its agenda of fortifying the India-Bangladesh border across Bengal during its third cabinet meeting…Bengal shares over 2,200 kilometres of the border with Bangladesh. The new state government has made it a priority to hand (…)

• Kerala’s Governance Challenge: Ministerial Inexperience, Bureaucratic Dependence and the Need for Knowledge-Based Democracy | A. M. Jose and Jos Chathukulam

  12 June, by A. M. Jose, Jos Chathukulam

  Abstract: This article examines a growing contradiction in Kerala’s democratic governance: elected ministers possess political legitimacy, but many assume complex portfolios without adequate sectoral experience or independent institutional support. Using the recent ministerial portfolio allocation as an illustrative case, the article argues that the issue is not individual incompetence but a structural knowledge deficit within parliamentary governance. In the absence of strong transition (…)

• The Protest in Sijimali in Odisha: A Historic Moment in People’s Struggle for Right to Homeland | Suranjita Ray

  12 June, by Suranjita Ray

  Rich in bauxite reserves and biodiversity, and situated at the edge of the sanctuary’s eco-sensitive zone, the Sijimali hills in Kalahandi and Rayagada districts in Odisha has been at the center of conflict between the developmental state and the people’s right to forest land and livelihood. For the last several months, a large gathering of indigenous people on the lower reaches of the hills has been protesting against the bauxite mining project of Vedanta Limited, one of the largest mining (…)

• India-USA Interim Trade Deal, 2026: Impact on Agricultural Development and Farmers Welfare | Nayakara Veeresha

  12 June, by Nayakara Veeresha

  Abstract
  The bilateral interim trade framework between the India and United States of America (USA) is the talk of the nation since its official statement made on 6th February, 2026. The India-US trade deal is labelled as historic and the reduction of reciprocal tariff from 25 to 18 per cent is described as a significant move in deepening the trade relations with USA. The reading of the text gives an impression that India acceded more with little gains in terms of expanding its export (…)

• Understanding educational bureaucracy and caste stratification through A.R. Vasavi’s Government Brahmin | Ishita Sinha

  12 June

  Within educational research, much attention has been given to studies at scale that attempt to gather data and analyse the relationship of caste, education and social reproduction. In “Government Brahmin”—Caste, the Educated Unemployed, and the Reproduction of Inequalities, however, A.R. Vasavi (2014) examines these ideas through new forms of ethnography, drawing on observations, diaries and discussions with the interlocutor to study the impact of policies, processes and institutions at the (…)