Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Farmers’ Movement: Time to Introspect | Prem Singh

  12 February 2021, by Prem Singh

  by Prem Singh
  Two achievements of the ongoing peasant movement in opposition to the three agricultural laws which have transformed this movement into nothing sort of exemplary are: carving out a space for democratic resistance; and expanding awareness of the ill effects of capitalism pushed through policies of privatization-corporatization. These two achievements of the peasant movement contain special significance in view of the dictatorial attitude of the present government and in the (…)

• The Cow Problem Of Cow Belt | Sandeep Pandey and Kushagra Kumar

  12 February 2021, by Kushagra Kumar, Sandeep Pandey

  Narendra Modi’s ascension to power brought a new phenomenon to India – cow vigilantism. Number of mob lynching incidents took place some resulting in loss of life for the victims who happened to be mostly Muslims. Dalits too took the beating. On the other hand the aggressors hardly ever got punished. In fact, filing of First Information Report against victim or his relatives, in case of his death, became a common occurrence under the Bhartiya Janata Party rule.
  As a result of this cow (…)

• Book Excerpt: The Death Script - Dreams and Delusions in Naxal Country | Ashutosh Bhardwaj

  12 February 2021

  by Ashutosh Bhardwaj
  __0__
  THE DEATH SCRIPT:
  Dreams and delusions in Naxal country
  by Ashutosh Bhardwaj
  HarperCollins Publishers India
  June 2020 | 280 pages | Rs 599
  Available here
  __0__
  [rouge]EXCERPTS:rouge]
  Will you become our intellectual?’
  I was surprised.
  ‘Our biggest weakness is precisely this – that we do not have any intellectuals.’
  A forest, somewhere along the Jharkhand–Bihar border. 16 April 2013. The Lawalong block of Chatra district. Some twenty-five (…)

• Empowering the Migrants: Requisites and Rationalities | Nupur Pattanaik

  12 February 2021

  by Nupur Pattanaik
  The paper analyses the plight of migrants and talks about the atrocities encountered by the migrant community during the pandemic. The Covid-19 has brought to the spotlight the trials and tribulations faced by women, children, old aged people in the pandemic and how they have been succumbing to exploitation and marginalisation, the need for efficient paradigms and perspectives to make migration safer and needed for the development of the nation. It reflects a need for (…)

• How to Silence Rihanna & Influence the World | Deputy Deshbhakt

  12 February 2021

  by Deputy Deshbhakt
  The protesting farmers can tackle barbed wire and steel spikes but cannot cope with 20 ex-IFS officers supporting the farm laws. Farmers cannot read the English statement by experts in drafting papers and non-papers. These farmers produced no IFS officer and thus cannot get help from their kith and kin.
  What do the IFS officers have to do with farming? They know the fine distinction between German and Italian wines but cannot distinguish between wheat and rapeseed (…)

• Myanmar: A turbulent Democracy | Priyanka Mallick

  12 February 2021

  by Priyanka Mallick *
  Myanmar is again under military rule. After a gap of almost one decade, Myanmar is directly under military control. The State Counsellor of Myanmar and the leader of National League for Democracy (NLD), Aung San Suu Kyi are detained in the early hours of February 1, 2021, along with other politicians. Min Aung Hlaing, the Commander-in-Chief, took control over the country for one year and declared a state of emergency.
  In November 2020 General Election, Aung San Suu (…)

• The Lady and The Generals | Jonathan Head

  12 February 2021

  [Listen to BBC’s From Our Own Correspondent - the report from Jonathan Head on Feb 6, 2021]
  BBC Radio, Feb 6, 2021
  TEXT OF TRANSCRIPT: THE LADY AND THE GENERAL
  BBC Correspondent Jonathan Head reports from Yangon, Myanmar:
  Aung San Suu Kyi, a leader was once idolised as the champion of freedom, but who, in defending the generals against charges of genocide, was then denounced as a fallen angel.
  Myanmar is a fearfully complicated country with a history that is traumatic even by (…)

• Making sense of Myanmar’s coup | Mikael Gravers

  12 February 2021

  by Mikael Gravers *
  2 February 2021
  Early in the morning on 1 February 2021, the Myanmar armed forces (Tatmadaw) arrested President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, along with other high-ranking National League for Democracy (NLD) members. As the military staged the coup, armoured cars and soldiers guarded radio and television stations and the parliament. The Tatamadaw closed the NLD office in Mandalay and searched for activists known to oppose military rule, such as the (…)

• Reading “Asiatic” Despotism | Arup Kumar Sen

  12 February 2021, by Arup Kumar Sen

  Marx’s reading of the Asian societies, particularly his concept of the “Asiatic mode of production”, has led to controversies in the political and academic communities at different points of time. A scholar, Kimio Shiozawa, argued: “Marx’s view of Asian society and his theory of the Asiatic mode of production developed gradually over time, and his early views are not the same as those of his later years”. (Kimio Shiozawa, Marx’s View of Asian Society and His “Asiatic Mode of Production”, The (…)

• Ageing dams are ‘ticking time bombs’ | Ranjit Devraj

  12 February 2021

  by Ranjit Devraj
  [NEW DELHI] Perched high up in the Western Ghats, adjacent to Kerala’s famed Periyar wildlife sanctuary, is a 126-year-old dam that has dangerously outlived the 50 years of life intended for it by colonial British engineers.
  N.K. Premachandran, a member of parliament from Kerala, describes the 53.6 metre-high Mullaperiyar dam on the Periyar river as “a ticking timebomb waiting to explode, not only because of its antiquity but also because it is located on an acknowledged (…)