Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Bail not jail is a privilege only for the select few | Faraz Ahmad

  24 February 2024, by Faraz Ahmad

  The Supreme Court on February 12 granted indefinite extension to the interim bail granted much earlier to Ashish Mishra the son of Union minister Ajay Kumar Mishra in the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence which claimed eight lives.
  A bench of Justices Surya Kant and K V Viswanathan confirmed interim bail last in September, 2023 to Ashish Mishra charged with the murder of a group of farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri on October 3, 2021
  This group was walking down the road to register its protest at a (…)

• Sunabohu: Ethnographic study of Karan; Construction of a Political Community | Radhakanta Barik

  24 February 2024, by Radhakanta Barik

  (Suna Bohu a political story written by Fakirmohan Senapati. The Karan coming from outside rose to power in colonial times. Their education shaped their community. Karan turned into a political community and captured politics of Odisha till today.)
  Introduction:
  Fakirmohan Senapati’s story Sunabohu needs to be placed in the context of sociology of its time. The story’s centres around the Karan caste. The ethnographic background of Karan is found by Malley’s District Gazetteers of (…)

• Set up fast-track and fair probe into assassination of Govind Pansare - Letter to Chief Minster of Maharashtra

  24 February 2024, by Binoy Viswam

  Binoy Viswam Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha)
  Date: 20th February, 2024
  To,
  Shri Eknath Shinde, Chief Minister, Government of Maharashtra
  Respected Shri Eknath Shinde Ji,
  I write this letter to register my profound disappointment with the manner in which the Maharashtra Government is probing one of the most heinous acts of political terrorism in the country. On February 20, 10 years back, Comrade Govind Pansare was shot at by cowardly armed assailants. Comrade Pansare was a (…)

• NDA, India and The Coalition Conundrum | Ajay K. Mehra

  24 February 2024, by Ajay K. Mehra

  Prime Minister Narendra Modi has strongly pitched the coming the nineteenth general election in April-May 2024 in terms of a performing leadership (himself) and government and the Congress that has never done anything right since independence. He always criticizes, almost condemns, Nehru in the same breath to highlight his own image. Before that, he pocketed Bihar and Nitish Kumar to kill the perception of an opposition. Even as Rahul Gandhi enters Chhatisgarh on his Bharat Jodo Nyaya (…)

• Will Legal MSP Guarantees Drive the Government to Bankruptcy? | Soma Marla

  24 February 2024, by Soma S. Marla

  Demand for a law guaranteeing MSPs for crops in markets has once again surfaced with renewed farmers agitation. Of late, several articles in news media and TV debates about the dangers of providing a legal sanctity to the Minimum Support Price (MSP). Dr. Ashok Gulati (TOI, 14th February, 2024), Dr. Ramesh Chand (Niti Ayog, 2023) are major proponents of this argument. They argue that purchase of all crops (23 of them) at guaranteed MSP would drive the government to bankruptcy and leave (…)

• Farmer movements must defeat big business agenda by integrating livelihood and climate concerns | Bharat Dogra

  24 February 2024, by Bharat Dogra

  During several recent movements of farmers, particularly in Europe, sometimes a serious misunderstanding has been created, or is sought to be created, that what is needed for protecting farmers’ livelihoods and what is needed for climate change mitigation and adaptation are in conflict with each other. Therefore it is important to emphasize with renewed vigor that there is no such conflict. If a proper, wider, enlightened view is taken, what will best protect the interests of farmers is the (…)

• Pakistan elections: The ‘militablishment’ may have won the battle, but is it losing the war? | Ershad Mahmud

  24 February 2024

  The recent general elections in Pakistan, the results of which are yet to be finalised, gave birth to distinct themes, echoing with clarity and significance. Among these, a resounding message becomes apparent: the Pakistani populace, especially its dynamic youth, opposes the coercive methods of the state apparatus and refuses to adhere to predetermined narratives dictating the country’s trajectory by the military leadership.
  The defeat of the establishment-backed Pakistan Muslim League (N) (…)

• We need to talk about obstetric violence | Vijayetta Sharma

  24 February 2024

  February 8, 2024
  Expectant mothers deserve proper care when giving birth. Instead, some face forced surgery, bullying, coercion and insufficient pain relief.
  Women being threatened with beatings for screaming during labour. Women forced to deliver babies on the floor despite the availability of labour beds. Women handed plastic bags containing the unwashed bodies of their stillborn children.
  These are just some of the horrific stories that have emerged from investigations into abuse (…)

• Broadcaster Ameen Sayani’s whose voice united South Asia | Jawed Naqvi

  24 February 2024, by Jawed Naqvi

  Progressive Urdu poet Sardar Jafri often quoted from a Pakistani poet’s poem to illustrate the power of music over politics.
  It was music, he said, which had bound India and Pakistan through ups and downs since their inception.
  “Two Indian and Pakistani men, surrounded by their supporters in a restaurant, were fiercely defending their countries,” Jafri Sahab recalled. “Suddenly, the voice of Lata Mangeshkar arrived on the radio and the quarrel stopped in obeisance. The packed restaurant (…)

• Folk Politics and Populism: Pedagogy of Leadership | Sunita Samal

  24 February 2024, by Sunita Samal

  Abstract: The discussion about the problem of past and vision of future come together in debate of what is not done in present. Here is the dream of protest as an expression of politics. It may be personal or collective; organized or unorganised. Trait research leaders and behaviour research leaders did not consider situational influences that might moderate the relationship between leader behaviour and leader effectiveness. If that seems to be a deflating idea, it only goes to show how (…)