Mainstream Weekly

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• India’s got the BRICS blues | M K Bhadrakumar

  7 January 2023, by M K Bhadrakumar

  January 6, 2023
  The Brazilian news agency reported that Lula da Silva’s inauguration as the new president on January 1 for a historic third term amidst a carnival-like backdrop was attended by over five dozen foreign delegations, composed of heads of government, vice presidents, foreign ministers, special envoys and representatives of international organisations. It was the largest event with high-level international figures in Brazil since the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
  The BRICS leaders (…)

• Philosophy of the City and Planning Ideology, excerpt from ’The Right to the City’ | Henri Lefebvre (1968)

  7 January 2023

  [Below is an excerpt from the The Right to the City (1996) by Henri Lefebvre translated and introduced by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas. The original book by Henri Lefebvre titled ’Le Droit à la ville appeared in 1968]
  In order to formulate the problematic of the city (to articulate problems by linking them), the following must be clearly distinguished:
  I. The philosophers and philosophies of the city who define it speculatively as whole by defining the ‘homo urbanicus’ as man in (…)

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  Detention and brutal torture of labour rights activist, Shiv Kumar in Haryana | PUDR statement

  7 January 2023

  PEOPLE’S UNION FOR DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS
  Condemn Torture, Demand Action
  29 Dec 2022
  People’s Union for Democratic Rights welcomes the findings of the report submitted by the District and Sessions Judge, Faridabad into the illegal detention and brutal torture of labour rights activist, Shiv Kumar in January 2021 by the Haryana Police.
  Part of the findings ordered by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the petition filed by Shiv Kumar’s father in February 2021, the report substantiates (…)

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  One year of Injustice: One year of NREGA workers wage theft in West Bengal | NREGA Sangharsh Morcha Press Release (Dec 26, 2022)

  7 January 2023

  One year of Injustice: One year of NREGA workers wage theft in West Bengal
  Centre withheld over 7,500 cr funds, 2,744 cr due to NREGA workers Centre hasn’t sanctioned labour budget for 2022-23 Loss of around 4687-6842 crores of NREGA wages this FY due to stoppage of work Average days of work for the current year dropped to meagre 23 from 63.46 days (pre-covid) and 49.96 days (post-covid)
  Victimisation of workers:
  MGNREGA workers in West Bengal have not been paid wages (…)

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  PB Communiqué from Communist Party of India (Marxist) | New Delhi. December 28

  7 January 2023

  Communist Party of India (Marxist)
  December 28, 2022
  Press Communiqué
  The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) met in New Delhi on December 27-28. It has issued the following statement:
  Economy:
  The Polit Bureau expressed its concern at the deepening recessionary conditions in the Indian economy. Notwithstanding all propaganda and claims made by the government of economic recovery, investments in augmenting India’s productive capacities are not growing. (…)

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  Celebrate Birth Centenary of Com. Geeta Mukherjee | D Raja

  7 January 2023, by D Raja

  New Delhi, January 5, 2023 Dear Comrades,
  January 8, 2023 marks the beginning of the birth centenary of Com. Geeta Mukerjee, an outstanding communist leader and an able Parliamentarian. She was fondly called as Geetadi all over the country.
  Com. Geetadi was born on January 8, 1924 in Kolkata (Calcutta). She was married to Com. Biswanath Mukherjee on November 8, 1942 who was a legendary communist leader and secretary of the West Bengal state unit of the Party.
  Com. Geetadi was student (…)

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  Review: Thakuria on Marriott’s edited volume, India through Hindu Categories

  7 January 2023

  Review by Trishna Mani Thakuria __0__
  India through Hindu Categories
  by McKim Marriott (ed.)
  New Delhi: Sage
  1990. Xvi+209 pp. Plates, Maps, References, Errata, Index. Rs. 450 (hardback)
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  This book is an ambitious attempt in the form of collective effort of academic intellectuals to understand social behaviour of people from cultural categories, splitting out from the bias of general social science which analyses social behaviour and configuration under certain fixed (…)

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  Review: Steiner on Anctil’s ’Luminous Creatures: The History and Science of Light Production in Living Organisms’

  7 January 2023

  Reviewed by Katharina Steiner (University of Geneva)
  __0__
  Luminous Creatures: The History and Science of Light Production in Living Organisms by Michel Anctil
  Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press
  2018. 488 pp. ISBN 978-0-7735-5312-5
  __0__
  With his book on the history and science of light production in living animals, Michel Anctil offers a rich history of a phenomenon that has triggered not only superstition, optical illusions, and imaginative worlds but also the (…)

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  Photo: Pele the football legend in action with his bicycle kick

  6 January 2023
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  Caricature Tribute to Pele | Jayaraj Vellur

  6 January 2023, by Jayaraj Vellur