Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Gandhi, Godot and Pandemic Plague: Interrogating Two Accusations | Muzaffar Assadi

  11 September 2021

  by Muzaffar Assadi
  Two accusations have been levelled against Gandhi while detailing the pandemic plague during the last century: that Gandhi had less concern about taking up the case of pandemic plague in India than in South Africa. Secondly, the plague was not the major reason that made him a nationalist leader.
  Gandhi went to South Africa in the year 1893. The plague spread to the Indian colony in South Africa in 1904. As part of apartheid policy, Indians were settled in an exclusive (…)

• Language Policy Issues in India With Some Reference to Northeast Tribes | J.J. Roy Burman

  11 September 2021, by J.J. Roy Burman

  The language issue has become a highly sensitive agenda in the nation building process all over the globe, India not excluded. According to Khare (2002) language being a channel of communication, it has two major roles in society. It influences distribution of power and wealth, particularly in an under literate society. It also acts as an emotional and culture cement for social bonding. The language issue in India has been a major prickly point of politics since the nation- state was founded (…)

• Taliban get a government! | M K Bhadrakumar

  11 September 2021, by M K Bhadrakumar

  September 8, 2021
  The regional states will be shell-shocked by the brazen way Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), coerced the Taliban to announce an interim government that is guaranteed to preserve Rawalpindi’s control over the levers of power in Kabul.
  There are several things to be noted about the so-called interim government announced by the Taliban on September 7. The “moderate” Taliban political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, supposedly (…)

• Where is American foreign policy heading post Afghanistan? | P. S. Jayaramu

  11 September 2021

  by P. S. Jayaramu
  September 6, 2021
  With President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw American soldiers from Afghanistan implemented, which in itself has produced commentaries, for and against, it is time to reflect on where is the American foreign policy heading in the days to come. It is useful to begin by looking at the speech the President made, a few days ago, after the withdrawal of the last soldier from Kabul. Strongly defending his decision to pull back troops, Biden said during (…)

• The Kharasrota River Not for Sale | Bhabani Shankar Nayak

  11 September 2021

  by Bhabani Shankar Nayak*
  The people of Kendrapada district of Odisha are fighting peacefully for last two years to save their river Kharasrota. This river is the lifeline of farmers, fishing communities and other communities living besides the river. The Kharasrota river is the source of life and livelihoods for the people of Odisha in general and people of Kendrapada and Jajpur in particular. The successive governments have failed to provide safe drinking water to the people of Odisha. (…)

• Some thoughts on the Ganesh festival and related matters | S G Vombatkere

  11 September 2021, by S G Vombatkere

  The Ganesh festival is celebrated country-wide with prayers and rituals, greetings are exchanged, and various food delicacies are prepared. When we relish the delicacies, it is appropriate to remember that every one of those preparations is based upon farm produce, be it grains, vegetables, fruits, or the banana leaves on which the feast is served. This farm produce is the result of many people – the farmer community – working the earth round the year, not only during festivals, to grow (…)

• A Sordid Saga of Caste And Backwardness Politics | P Radhakrishnan

  11 September 2021

  by Professor P Radhakrishnan *
  The chaotic proliferation of jurisprudential literature on reservation, backwardness and caste politics, with as VR Krishna Iyer repeatedly chastised the lackadaisical judges for spending more time on extra-judicial activities and not on dockets, is a pointer to the ongoing reservation rigmarole all over the country. How many judges can touch their heart and say they have scrutinized the Constituent Assembly Debates, understood the task of unraveling the (…)

• Militarization of Shastric Hindu Texts | Arup Kumar Sen

  11 September 2021, by Arup Kumar Sen

  The Major General, Subhash Sharan, made a public statement in Meerut in 2019: “Bhagavad Gita is a military manual and should be read by all the youngsters”. He recalled that the American Army had taken copies of Bhagavad Gita from India for their soldiers to be deployed in war-torn Iraq. To put it in his own words: “To motivate their soldiers, the Americans took 30,000 copes of Bhagavad Gita to teach them ‘Karma Yoga’, that is, the reason behind fighting a battle and engaging their enemy (…)

• Understanding 9/11 – Why Less Obvious Aspects Should be Explored More | Bharat Dogra

  11 September 2021, by Bharat Dogra

  The terrorist attack in the U.S.A on September 11, 2001 (hereafter referred to as 9/11) was a colossal tragedy and one of those historical events which shape the events of many years to come. All those who want a peaceful world condemned this horrible violence against innocent people with one voice. At the same time, there have been concerns that some important aspects of this tragedy have not been explained adequately, and in some contexts actually there have been strong efforts to (…)

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  Did Netaji Live, Die in India Post 1947? | M.R. Narayan Swamy

  11 September 2021, by M R Narayan Swamy

  Conundrum: Subhas Bose’s Life After Death
  by Chandrachur Ghose & Anuj Dhar
  Vitasta
  Pages: 834
  Price: 995
  __0__
  Incredible, shocking, stunning! There is no other way to describe this monumental work of history which goes to extreme depths to tell the world what happened to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, whose 1945 death in a plane crash remains wrapped in mystery. Casting their net of research all across India and even parts of the globe, writer Chandrachur Ghose and (…)