Mainstream Weekly

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  Table of Contents, Mainstream, Jan 14, 2023

  14 January 2023

  * China and India - as ’merchants of death’ | Sumanta Banerjee
  * The Multi-Billion Dollar Sports Money Machine | Kobad Ghandy
  * Destruction of Nature and Disneyfication of Himalayan Pilgimage Sites | Anon
  * Ukraine: Letter on behalf of the trolleybus drivers of Kharkiv | Vitaliy

• Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Jan 14, 2023

  14 January 2023

  Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Jan 14, 2023
  Attacking Democracy Fashionable, After Assaults in Washington and Brasila, Where next?
  The Presidential elections in Brazil of October 2, 2022 were very hotly contested. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a leading figure on the Left, did finally win the election getting 50.90 percent of the vote and the losing candidate, the incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro representing the Far-Right camp getting a little over 49 percent. Both candidates had been (…)

• China and India - as ’merchants of death’ | Sumanta Banerjee

  14 January 2023, by Sumanta Banerjee

  China and India, while fighting with each other over their borders, have however recently become partners as ‘merchants of death’ in the global arena. While China has been accused of giving birth to a chemical that caused Covid-19 and exporting it all over the world, India on a minor scale has been found to be exporting pharmaceuticals that have led to the death of children in Gambia and Uzbekistan.
  The term ’merchants of death’ was originally used to describe the bankers and arms (…)

• Tamilnadu Governor Ravi in Skipping a Para of his Address to the Assembly Violates His Oath to Defend the Constitution | S N Sahu

  14 January 2023, by S N Sahu

  Governor of Tamilnadu R N Ravi had accepted the Government drafted text of his address to the Assembly and on 9th January 2022 while reading out that text, as mandated by the Article 176 of the Constitution, skipped a paragraph containing, among others, “secularism”, “Dravidan model of Governance” and names of illustrious leaders modern India such as Periyar, Ambedkar, K Kamraj and Karunanidhi. He also spoke something on his own and it was not part of the address. It is rather paradoxical (…)

• Why announce aggression now Bhagwatji? | Faraz Ahmad

  14 January 2023, by Faraz Ahmad

  Hindutva aggression is the new leitmotif of the Sangh parivar. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Sarsanghchalak (chief) Mohan Bhagwat has declared this. But as the election to the 18th Lok Sabha approaches a little over year from now, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had started showing signs of this aggression from early 2022.
  For more than a year since the BJP imported a former socialist S.R. Bommai’s son Basvaraj Bommai to head their government in Karnataka, merely to appease the (…)

• Caste Atrocities and Social Justice in India | Rachna Kumari Prasad

  14 January 2023

  Caste is not a physical object like a wall of bricks or a line of barbed wire which prevents the Hindus from co-mingling and which has, therefore, to be pulled down. Caste is a notion; it is a state of the mind. The idea of affirmative action and its implementation in post-colonial India as reservation policy and various policies and programmes have not been sufficient enough to accommodate the normative and ethical concerns of egalitarianism and social justice. —B R Ambedkar
  EQUALITY AND (…)

• Punjab Struggle Focuses Attention on Ecological Ruin Caused by Liquor | Bharat Dogra

  14 January 2023, by Bharat Dogra

  During recent months a determined struggle by villagers in Zira area of Ferozepur district, Punjab, has been demanding the removal of a highly polluting factory to save the soil and water of their region. As a result of this pollution water and soil have been badly damaged and groundwater was found to be very contaminated. The recent crackdown of the police on protestors has only strengthened their resolve to fight this pollution, and following this some organizations of farmers have also (…)

• Sports Mania as a tool to earn billions for the corporates and also lull the masses into a make-believe world | Kobad Ghandy

  14 January 2023, by Kobad Ghandy

  Sports should be made an essential part of the curriculum in schools and colleges. Sports like football, hockey, athletics, badminton, table tennis, tennis, swimming, cycling, etc are dynamic and should be an essential part of the training of our youth but also a major source of entertainment for children and adolescents. In my youth there was nothing I enjoyed as much as playing badminton, tennis, table tennis or swimming and cycling. Of course football and hockey would be one of the best (…)

• Psychology of Freebies and Lessons from Lakshadweep | K Gireesan

  14 January 2023

  by K. Gireesan *
  ‘Freebie’ refers to a thing that is provided or given free of charge. It is one of the most sought-after things in the political system, especially when the country or its sub-regional units go for elections. Here is a modest attempt to examine the ‘psychology’ of Freebies rather than analysing the ‘economics’ or ‘politics’ behind it, by sharing an interesting experience noted from Lakshadweep.
  I wish to deliberate upon certain basic aspects, before going to the (…)

• Moonlighting: Boon or Bane - HR Manager Challenges | Nand L. Dhameja, Manish Dhameja, Ridhi Khattar

  14 January 2023

  by Nand L. Dhameja, Manish Dhameja, Ridhi Khattar *
  The last decade has been tumultuous in Indian history, one is the demonetisation of higher currency notes i.e., Rs. 1000 & Rs. 2000 in November 2016; covet-19 pandemic is another. The latter, no doubt, resulted in lakhs of casualties, it had led to many new developments. Work from Home (HFM) concept has brought in new ways of doing things and new way of life, it has introduced newer work culture and newer teaching methodology.
  WFH (…)