Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Are Interstate Migrant Workers in Kerala Really "Guest Workers"?

  20 September, by A. M. Jose, Jos Chathukulam

  Abstract
  Kerala is home to millions of interstate migrant workers whose contributions are indispensable to the state’s economy. While the term "guest workers" was introduced with the positive intention of promoting dignity and respect, this article argues that it is constitutionally inappropriate because it implies that fellow Indian citizens are outsiders. Drawing on the constitutional principles of single citizenship, freedom of movement, and the right to reside and work anywhere in (…)

• Evaluating the Evolution of Ideas and Ideals of University or Higher Education at Large: Which Way Now? | Arup Maharatna

  20 September, by Arup Maharatna

  There can be little doubt that global higher education (HE hereafter), as we know it now, is in a flux. This has increasingly been palpable in a growing plethora of monographs written over several preceding decades, which grapple with what is often described as a crisis of university education or HE at large. Although this concern refers to a wide range of issues including curriculum, pedagogy, governance, finance, equity, and standard and their current trends, the notion and purpose of a (…)

• Kerala CPI (M) in Self-Critical, Corrective Mode at Three-Day Conclave | P. Sreekumaran

  20 September

  September 16, 2026, Thiruvananthapuram: A big salute to the CPI(M)’s lower-level leaders and the party cadres. For, it was their bold, open and trenchant criticism of the leadership which forced the party to go for a change for the better.
  The party’s central leadership, ably led by general secretary M. A. Baby, also deserves full credit for the welcome corrective steps taken at the three-day extended CPI(M) State Committee meeting, which concluded with a massive rally on the beach at (…)

• Rethinking Indian Agriculture: Why Innovation, Not Input Subsidies, Must Drive the Next Green Revolution | Deepa Palathingal and Palak Kunwar

  20 September

  Introduction
  India’s agricultural policy is increasingly caught between two competing imperatives. The first need to focus on feeding the population that is expected to exceed 1.5 billion within next decade. The second is the growing concern over sustainable agricultural practices, soil fertility, clean water, and low crop production. Policymakers have addressed this issue by implementing initiatives to promote natural farming, improve soil health, foster climate-resilient agriculture, and (…)

• Muthanga After Twenty-Three Years: A Verdict and the Long History of Betrayal | K.M. Seethi

  20 September, by K M Seethi

  Twenty-three years after the police action at Muthanga, the court has delivered verdicts on some of the cases arising from one of the most traumatic confrontations between the Kerala state and its Adivasi communities. However, the judgments also reopen a much larger question that no courtroom verdict by itself can settle: who has really been held accountable for Muthanga? The Adivasis who occupied the land have faced prosecution for more than two decades. Their leaders have moved through (…)

• Chandsi: A house, a belonging, an emotion | Tarun Basu

  20 September

  My house in Delhi is called Chandsi Villa. The name itself is something of a misnomer, as the once garden house is now a four-storey apartment building, far removed from a villa that the name evokes. And it is named after a village in Bangladesh which no one in this building has ever visited, not even perhaps its original owners, our parents.
  Omniscient Google describes Chandsi as "a historically significant village located in the Gournadi Upazila of the Barisal District in south-central (…)

• We are Apolitical: Simple Truths of a Clever Politics
 | Sanjay Kumar

  20 September, by Sanjay Kumar

  What are the moral arguments and consequences of being political, or apolitical in contemporary India? While the two terms, political and apolitical, are semantically opposite, in practice they occur deeply entwined. The recent youth led Jantar Mantar protests in India are a good example. If the single issue protest against an examination leak morphed into widespread ridicule and opposition to the ruling dispensation, claims of being apolitical in the same protests turned out to be an under (…)

• Thompson and the Decomposition of Abstract Time : Clock time and life-time saving | John Holloway

  20 September

  ”The clock, not the steam engine, is the key-machine of the modern industrial age.” — Lewis Mumford
  “During the Paris commune, in all corners of the city ... there were people shooting at the clocks ...” — Walter Benjamin
  Just like the clocks, the debate about clock-time is going forward and back, forward and back. See this report here about proposal that Britain moves to Central European Time. Why does no-one ever suggest that we all work an hour a day less during the winter months? (…)

• A tale of two unconstitutional legislations and apocalypse in journalism: India’s First Metadata case — Part 16

  20 September, by Gopal Krishna

  जानामि धर्मं न च मे प्रवृत्तिः, (I know what is right conduct but I am not inclined towards it) जानाम्यधर्मं न च मे निवृत्तिः। (I know what is wrong conduct but I am not free from it) (Duryodhana cited in Garg Samhita, Verse 36, Chapter 50)
  "Delighted at the passage of The Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2023 in the Lok Sabha with such phenomenal support. I thank MPs across Party lines who voted in support of this Bill. The Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam is a (…)

• Sri Lankans rally to save Tamil facing death in Saudi Arabia | M.R. Narayan Swamy

  20 September

  September 23, 2026
  Setting aside decades of ethnic bitterness and fratricide, Sri Lankans of all hues are joining hands in a desperate attempt to save a 27-year-old Tamil youth who faces execution in Saudi Arabia over a derogatory post on Prophet Mohammad.
  The government has engaged a pricey lawyer in the Gulf kingdom while political and religious leaders are demanding that Sivarasa Anojan be spared the capital punishment and, if possible, returned to Sri Lanka.
  Knowing Colombo’s (…)