Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Aadhaar and Disempowerment | Arup Kumar Sen

  11 March 2023, by Arup Kumar Sen

  The Union government is pursuing the aggressive policy of linking welfare schemes for the people with Aadhaar. According to the social activist, Nikhil Dey, recent shift to Aadhaar-based payment of MGNREGA wages took place when only 43 per cent of workers had their bank accounts Aadhaar-seeded. Very recently, the Centre sought monthly updates on the number of Aadhaar-authenticated students at every government and aided school in the country and the number of midday meals each serves. It is (…)

• Can RSS be compared to Muslim Brotherhood? | Ram Puniyani

  11 March 2023

  by Ram Puniyani
  In his recent tour abroad (August 2018) while addressing the International Institute for Strategic Studies Rahul Gandhi stated that "The RSS is trying to change the nature of India. There is no other organization in India that wants to capture India’s institutions... It is similar to the idea that exists in the Arab world of the Muslim Brotherhood. The idea is that one ideology should run through every institution and one idea should crush all other ideas,” and that "Muslim (…)

• Common Salt Intake Health Risks Very High In India | Gyan Pathak

  11 March 2023

  by Dr. Gyan Pathak
  March 10, 2023
  Despite commitments made to reduce the hazardous level of common salt, also called table salt, chemical name Sodium Chloride (NaCl), intake leading to increased health risks of heart diseases, stroke, and premature deaths, India has only a provision of mandatory declaration of sodium on pre-packaged food but no other mandatory measures in place, and therefore remains in score 2 in a first-of-its-kind WHO global report.
  Score 2 for India means the (…)

• Bringing Civility Back in Politics: The Moral Significance of Bharat Jodo Yatra | Supriy Ranjan, Pankaj Kumar

  11 March 2023

  by Supriy Ranjan abd Pankaj Kumar *
  The Pathological Predicament of Modern Leadership
  The vision of realpolitik inaugurated by the great Italian philosopher Machiavelli in “The Prince” has had a lasting presence in modern politics. Machiavelli signified the cusp as to how we envision politics as a vocation entirely and purely driven by the pragmatics of capturing and maintaining power. In this vision, even compassion and innocence are strategic, bereft of any innate goodness.
  Though (…)

• Remembering Karpoori Thakur : His relevance in the present times | Prem Singh

  11 March 2023, by Prem Singh

  (On the occasion of the birth centenary of Karpoori Thakur)
  For the last two years, various programs are being organized to commemorate the birth centenary of socialist leader Madhu Limaye (1 May 1922-8 January 1995). January also marks the birth centenary years of two other prominent socialist leaders, Madhu Dandavate (21 January 1924–12 November 2005) and Karpoori Thakur (24 January 1924–17 February 1988). Karpoori Thakur’s birth centenary celebrations began on 24 January 2023 in (…)

• As Women’s Premier League Starts, Don’t Look Back in Anger | Aparajita

  11 March 2023

  As the WPL (Women’s Premier League) began on 4th of March, the mood in the women’s cricket fraternity of India was triumphant, and bullish. Countless articles exploring its potential for the women’s game and for women’s sport on a larger scale have already been written. Such is the jubilation in the popular discourse, that when I caught up with some of the girls from what I now refer to as the forgotten generation, not a single one of them permitted their names being used for this piece. (…)

• The Hijabian Choice: A Psychoanalytic Reading of the Unveiling of the Veil | Murzban Jal

  11 March 2023

  by Murzban Jal
  Not only in its answers, in its questions there was a mystification. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology.
  The Veil and Its Discontents
  When very suddenly and out of the blue, young Muslim girls were asked not to wear their hijabs when entering classrooms in a Karnataka school, the entire nation was made to see and listen to this unfortunate spectacle of a young hijab wearing Muslim girl being heckled by school boys with saffron scarves. The clash of (…)

• The Red Roar: Promises and Possibilities | Shubham Sharma

  11 March 2023

  by Shubham Sharma *
  The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation’s eleventh party congress concluded its final session on 20th February 2023. The five-day long event saw the city of Patna being painted red and marked the arrival of party delegates and guests from across the world. The event took place at a time when bourgeois democracy in India is serving its comeuppance at the hands of the communal-fascistic RSS-BJP, and its seems that there is no easy way out. However, it (…)

• Celebrating love: Beyond borders and boundaries of religion, caste, and nationality | Saman Shafiq

  11 March 2023

  by Saman Shafiq
  “In the process of suppressing individual happiness over centuries, we have encouraged agents of hate, discrimination, and violence,” comments journalist Aekta Kapoor, moderating an online discussion promoting equality and harmony
  7 March 2023: Love comes with challenges in any part of the world. In Southasia, these obstacles are even more pronounced, with barriers of caste, race, gender, religion, and ethnicity.
  The recent case of Pakistani woman Iqra Jeewani, 19, and (…)

• The War in Ukraine | Sagari Chhabra

  11 March 2023, by Sagari Chhabra

  ‘What is a catastrophe?’ asks my child. ‘When you turn humans into wild cats and asses, then hand each a trophy, of arms.’ My child notes this with a sense of calm. Then turning her face towards me she asks, ‘What is a collateral damage?’ ‘When you tell a grieving woman the home she built with all her savings, has just been bombed by a cluster’s shavings. But why do you need to know this?’ I venture to ask. ‘I am doing my home task. There are some blanks my teacher has asked me to fill; (…)