Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Understanding Vote Swings and Implications for Efficient Electoral Strategy | Indranil De

  18 March 2022

  by Indranil De *
  The landslide victory of AAP in Punjab and failure of SP in Uttar Pradesh (UP) are two diametrically opposite cases of political swings. Disproving many speculations of hung assembly, especially in UP, the BJP has come out with flying colours, in spite of political swing in favour of SP. On the contrary, the swing in favour of AAP gave them the historic victory in Punjab against incumbent Congress.
  Voting for a political party in any election can be viewed as people’s (…)

• 2022 Punjab Assembly elections: Having Promised the moon, Can AAP Deliver? | Jaspreet Kaur

  18 March 2022

  by Jaspreet Kaur *
  The results of the 2022 Punjab Assembly elections held on February 20, has been declared on March 10. Voters have elected the 117 members for the 16th state assembly of Punjab. The results of Punjab Assembly election this time are astonishing as well as historic. First time in the electoral history of Punjab, any party got such a huge mandate from the public. Although, during the election campaign, the contest might seem like multi-faceted, but the Aam Aadmi Party (…)

• Transforming The World — Engineering Humanity: A soft science view of hard science | S.G.Vombatkere

  18 March 2022, by S G Vombatkere

  (Acknowledgement: The original version of the Paper has been published in Social Science Abstracts Volume 44, 2021, pp.58-68)
  The world of Homo Sapiens
  For most of the Second Millennium CE onwards, humans in most societies have viewed the world around them as human-centric. This assumed “superiority” of humans over other forms of life and over all inert matter, puts Sapiens on a self-created pedestal as the acme of evolved life on the planet.
  Over millennia, as humans learned to (…)

• 50 year Journey of the Barefoot College Celebrates Hidden Abilities and Great Potential of Ordinary People | Bharat Dogra

  18 March 2022, by Bharat Dogra

  The Barefoot College, which has emerged as one of the most creative institutions in the field of rural development, discussed and admired at world level as a symbol of the often hidden but great abilities of ordinary people, particularly women and weaker sections, is completing 50 years of its eventful journey this year. Its experiences are important in the context of its own very creative achievements of course but even more so in the context of the support this provides to the idea of (…)

• Re-imagining Kamathipura | Arup Kumar Sen

  18 March 2022

  The iconic image of Kamathipura as a red- light district in Mumbai/India has a colonial genealogy. Census figures for 1864, 1871, 1901 and 1921 showed larger numbers of prostitutes living in parts of Bombay other than Kamathipura, notably in neighbourhoods populated by working-class Indians, such as Phunuswaree and Girgaon. However, none of these areas were defined as red-light zones. “Kamathipura was the area where European prostitutes first resided, and then were allocated. On the strength (…)

• Hindutva and the Crisis of Public Institutions in India | Bhabani Shankar Nayak

  18 March 2022

  by Bhabani Shankar Nayak *
  Public institutions have evolved in post-colonial India in response to crisis created by colonial plunders. Public institutions led by the state and government were shaped by anticolonial struggles in India. In spite of all its limitations, these institutions were designed to ensure and expand democratic and citizenship rights of all Indians irrespective of their caste, class, gender, religion and region. From planning commission to local development and revenue (…)

• For Naveen, In Ukraine | Sagari Chhabra

  18 March 2022, by Sagari Chhabra

  When my child was born, I named him Naveen – new – a gift of peace to the world. When he wanted to study at Kharkiv, I agreed, thinking he would return with a medical degree; little did I know of geopolitics; the decision of Putin to bomb a land, besiege an entire people, who at first taped their windows with glass, then huddled in subways, aghast; sans food, water, even medicines for the old; I had thought we had sold primitive warfare for the global highway, but all we got was aerial (…)

• Colours | Ajit Das

  18 March 2022

  It was long thirty years back I attained the white-clad widowhood. I didn’t know what it meant for me.
  An air of sympathy initially spontaneous, later on laboured, a feeling of being unwelcome in happy family gatherings, a growing suspicion of treating me inauspicious in rites and rituals – all weaved an uneasy cloak around my persona.
  Gradually I was told to shun all wishes, desires in mundane world, instead to seek bliss of life beyond through spiritual meditation.
  I tried to tread (…)

• Ukraine: Back to Status quo in Europe? | Shrikant Paranjpe

  18 March 2022

  by Dr. Shrikant Paranjpe*
  The Russian intervention in Ukraine can by understood in the context of two concepts, one that deals with the issue of legitimacy of intervention and the other with concerns about national security. The issue of legitimacy traces its source to the process of change that took place in Eastern Europe in 1989. The East European revolution that saw the disintegration and creation of new nation states rested on the foundation of ethnic nationalism based right to (…)

• Neo-Nazis are exploiting Russia’s war in Ukraine for their own purposes | Rita Katz

  18 March 2022

  by Rita Katz *
  Not since ISIS have we seen such a flurry of recruitment activity.
  “Hi can you please forward a message since two of us are trying to get a carshare from germany to ukraine going,” reads a Feb. 26 message forwarded to a popular neo-Nazi Web channel.
  “We are 3 french, leaving Strasbourg tomorrow morning with our car,” another message answered. “There is place for 2 german fighters.”
  These are the types of conversations that have flooded Western neo-Nazi and (…)