Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Return of the Taliban | Apratim Mukarji

  27 August 2021, by Apratim Mukarji

  For the second time in twenty years the dreaded Islamist fundamentalist force, the Taliban, have returned to power, the first time in 1994-96 by waging war against the Afghanistan state then run by the Burhanuddin Rabbani-Ahmad Shah Massoud government and this time, in the August of 2021 through a machivellian combination of warfare and diplomacy.
  Therefore, they have begun their second journey to power in a significantly different manner. Their leaders and spokesmen are talking in (…)

• The U.S. and the Taliban or Frankenstein and his Monster | Sukumaran C.V.

  27 August 2021, by Sukumaran C.V.

  The nation called Afghanistan has never been allowed to be a sovereign state. It has always been an occupied country, first by the erstwhile USSR, then by the U.S. and the terrorists created by the U.S. and now by the Taliban (which also is the creation of the U.S.). Mullah Mohammed Omar who created Taliban was a mujahideen fighter and it was mainly the U.S. which generously funded and provided arms and ammunition to the mujahideen for the proxy war against the USSR. When the Taliban (…)

• Seeing Hinduism Upside Down | TJS George

  27 August 2021, by T J S George

  IMPRESIONS
  "Hinduism will be finished in another century," says Abhijit Iyer Mitra, an academic. That of course is nonsense. If there is one religion in the world that will never be "finished," it is Hinduism. The most important reason is that Hinduism is not just a religion. It is a philosophy, an attitude to life. It is a way of putting oneself in perspective vis a vis the world. It can be "finished" only when "life" is finished, when "philosophy" is finished.
  Why would (…)

• Every single week, communal onslaughts | Humra Quraishi

  27 August 2021, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  25 August 2021
  Its about time we look towards our very own courtyards and backyards and front lawns! Not to overlook the murky happenings taking place in the very interiors of our prime setups. And, ah yes, also out there, along the lanes and by-lanes of our mohallas and bastis.
  Yes, spreading out are the tell-tale signs of the hapless human beings getting abused if not threatened and humiliated and dumped about, here and there. Mind you, there is a rather distinct pattern to (…)

• Drawing parallels: British Partition Plans for India and Palestine | Komal Deol

  27 August 2021

  by Komal Deol*
  The Independence Day celebrations on 15th August 1947 were tempered by the tragedy of partition that accompanied India’s midnight ‘tryst with destiny’. Less than a year after the dominions of India and Pakistan came into existence, another nation state — Israel — was born in 1948 under similar catastrophic conditions involving mass migration and communal violence. Both these events were rooted in the philosophy of ethnic homogenization, in the belief that it’s not possible (…)

• Political Crisis in Belarus Getting Aggravated | R G Gidadhubli

  27 August 2021

  by R G Gidadhubli
  Belarus has been witnessing unprecedented political crisis, even as on the 9th August 2021 the country has been passing through one year of highly disputed presidential election when Alyaksandr Lukashenka claimed victory for the sixth time. An effort has been made to highlight as to how and why the country has been witnessing crisis which has been persisting and getting aggravated. Belarus is landlocked Slavic State in Europe, with Russia on the East, Ukraine on the (…)

• China threatens to nuke Japan | Rajaram Panda

  27 August 2021, by Rajaram Panda

  Little over a month ago, on 13 July 2021 Japan issued the Ministry of Defense’s “Defense of Japan” white paper. Before analysing its content, it may be instructive to know its significance and what does it mean in the context of Japan’s Self Defense Forces and the nation’s security. Briefly put, it is the Defense Ministry’s report explaining the current state of Japan’s defense, military situations in countries around the world, policy issues and so on.
  The first edition was published in (…)

• Quad meets the “Saigon moment” | M K Bhadrakumar

  27 August 2021, by M K Bhadrakumar

  August 26, 2021
  The regional tour of Southeast Asia by the US Vice-President Kamala Harris got inundated with the tsunami of criticism over the United States’ frantic efforts to complete the evacuation out of Kabul Airport by the month-end. Again, Israel being a hugely attractive topic in US news cycles, Harris’ visit to Singapore and Vietnam may get marginalised with the arrival of the new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Washington later today.
  However, Harris’ tour is far (…)

• USA: How Animal Rights Moved From Soggy Leaflets and Skateboards to a Movement | Martha Rosenberg

  27 August 2021, by Martha Rosenberg

  by Martha Rosenberg
  In the 1980s, the animal rights movement was a sorry sight. In Chicago, it consisted of three to five activists handing out soggy leaflets in the rain outside a fur store on a Saturday, one also holding his skateboard. No one remembered to bring the signs and no one could agree whether to protest carriage horses or captive whales at the Shedd Aquarium on the next Saturday.
  Passersby were abusive. “Your shoes are leather,” they would yell, a simplistic syllogism that (…)

• 

  Drinot on Birn and Necochea López, ’Peripheral Nerve: Health and Medicine in Cold War Latin America’

  27 August 2021

  Reviewed by Paulo Drinot
  __0__
  Peripheral Nerve:
  Health and Medicine in Cold War Latin America
  Anne-Emanuelle Birn, Raúl Necochea López, eds.
  Durham: Duke University Press
  2020. 384 pp.
  ISBN 978-1-4780-0956-6
  __0__
  A specter is haunting the COVID-19 pandemic, the specter of the Cold War. This is particularly true in Latin America. From Mexico to Chile, the pandemic has had a devastating impact on people and the economy. But it has also played out in ways that evoke many (…)