Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Oct 7, 2023

  7 October 2023

  Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Oct 7, 2023
  October 3, 2023, will go down a black day for press freedoms & civil liberties in India. Early morning onwards, police raided the homes of leading journalists, cultural activists, intellectuals, and critics including the General Secretary of the CPI(M). The police arrested Prabir Purkayastha the editor of the independent media portal NewsClick and Amit Chaudhuri, the HR in-charge of NewsClick under UAPA, the anti-terror law, and the police (…)

• Social and Economic Aspects of Caste Survey in Bihar | Arun Kumar

  7 October 2023, by Arun Kumar

  The need for caste census today is because after independence we adopted the top-down development model. It was thought that the benefits of development would flow from the upper strata to the lower ones. But this hope has been belied with the well-off capturing most of the benefits leaving little for the marginalized sections who are lagging behind in development.
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  The release of the figures from the caste survey in Bihar have immediately led to the heating up of politics in the (…)

• Why Some Crucial Aspects of the Second Labour Commission Are Still Very Relevant | Bharat Dogra

  7 October 2023, by Bharat Dogra

  Although almost two decades have passed since the Second Labour Commission submitted its report, some crucial aspects of its recommendations are still very relevant particularly in the context of the need for umbrella legislation for unorganized sector workers. This is of great significance for the welfare of nearly 270 million workers, including same of the poorest people in India. One of the gravest shortcomings of labour welfare in India has been that while as many as 90 per cent of the (…)

• Restructuring and Democratising Governance, Expanding Political Autonomy | C.R. Bijoy

  7 October 2023

  Abstract
  The historical narrative of governance of peoples and lands in the Indian sub-continent seems to have two distinct trajectories that are yet to meet; the first progressively constricts democracy while the second deepens and expands democracy. In the context of the swing towards electoral autocracy, market hegemony, political chaos, social conflicts and rising aspirations, a critical examination of the latter, in law and practice, could unravel the governance structure that is (…)

• Communal Harmony: Foundation of Indian Nationalism | Ram Puniyani

  7 October 2023, by Ram Puniyani

  India is a country with multiple diversities. Be it in the matter of religion, language and ethnicity, India’s diversity is a phenomenon. While we came to become an ‘Indian Nation’ during the freedom movement, we do inherit pluralism in all aspects of our life in the subcontinent. The evolving harmony gives our culture a unique essence and is the foundation of our country’s ethos.
  The beginnings
  Indian geography is such that many people kept coming here from the West and composite Indian (…)

• India’s quest for Permanent seat at the UN Security Council | P. S. Jayaramu

  7 October 2023

  22nd September 2023
  India’s success in coming up with a consensus document at the recently concluded G20 summit in New Delhi and the Chandrayaan-3 mission as the first nation to reach the south pole of the moon and the accompanying global praise of the two events should lead us to renew our claim strongly for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. Undoubtedly, India deserves to be at the head table, though doubts are often expressed, realistically too about the efficacy of the world (…)

• India-Canada Diplomatic Tension & Electoral Politics! | Nilofar Suhrawardy

  7 October 2023, by Nilofar Suhrawardy

  by Nilofar Suhrawardy
  The degree to which diplomatic relations can at times be subject to political factors is probably being manifested by tension surfacing in ties between India and Canada. It is possible, if Prime Ministers of both countries were not guided by their political plans for next elections in their respective countries, they may have given greater importance to handling the issue more diplomatically and it may not have led to any bitterness between them. Just as Prime (…)

• The Khalistan Question: An Interview with Pritam Singh (2020)

  7 October 2023, by Pritam Singh

  Feb 9, 2020
  Joe Hayns
  An interview with Pritam Singh on the demand for Khalistan
  This year, Punjabis will hold a referendum (known as “Referendum 2020”) over whether Indian Punjab should become an independent state called Khalistan. The non-binding referendum aims to gauge the interest of Punjabis in establishing Khalistan before making a formal case at the UN for a binding referendum. In this context, Joe Hayns interviews Pritam Singh, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Oxford (…)

• What Makes Social Change Successful? An Examination of Black Politics in the US | Yanis Iqbal

  7 October 2023

  Methodology: From Empiricism to Dialectics
  Distinguishing successful movements for social change from unsuccessful ones requires the establishment of specific criteria to identify the factors responsible for the former’s higher political efficacy. How do we demonstrate the existence of these criterial grids? Empiricism provides the dominant concept of criteria, suggesting that the benchmark of political success is constituted by common characteristics – a shared abstraction – that must be (…)

• Death of the Armenian dream in Nagorno-Karabakh was predictable but not inevitable | Ronald Suny

  7 October 2023

  October 3, 2023
  Thirty-five years ago, more than 100,000 Armenian protesters – an ethnically Armenian enclave stuck geographically in the neighboring republic of Soviet Azerbaijan – ought to be joined to Armenia.
  In recent days, more than 100,000 people have taken to the streets again. But this time it is Karabakh Armenians fleeing their homes to find refuge in Armenia. They have been decisively defeated by the Azerbaijanis in a short and brutal military operation in the enclave. Their (…)