Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

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  Video: Monkey Business - a film by Howard Hawks (1952)

  9 January 2021

  Cast: Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe

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  Table of Contents - Mainstream, Jan 2, 2021

  2 January 2021

  * How Much of a Democracy is India, Really? | P B Sawant
  * Governorship Is Boring - Power Matters | TJS George
  * Twenty 20, A Dangerous Trend from Kerala| Sukumaran C V

• Letter to the Readers, Mainstream, Jan 2, 2021

  2 January 2021, by SC

  Letter to the Readers – Mainstream, Jan 2, 2021
  Once again we have crossed the doorstep of a new year. The year that we leave behind was one with a difference. Since the time I was born in the mid-1940s, I have never experienced a year of such a grave pandemic as this year, 2020, that took a toll of so many lives. What will the new year, 2021, bring to us? Hope or catastrophe? That is the moot question today. The present does not hold any positive reply although we still hope for the best (…)

• How Much of a Democracy is India, Really? | P. B. Sawant

  2 January 2021, by P.B. Sawant

  Abraham Lincoln defined Democratic Government as a government of, for and by the people. This definition was true to the spirit of the origin of democracy in the ancient Greek city states, where all males above 18 years were participating in the day to day affairs of the government. The essence of democracy is the participation of the people in the day to day affairs of the state. Mere elections are not democracy. The elections become necessary when on account of large populations people (…)

• Governorship Is Boring - Power Matters | TJS George

  2 January 2021, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS Arif Mohammed Khan must be the most frustrated politician in India today. He has been made governor when his own conviction is that he can serve the country best by being a power-wielding minister. He is taking out his frustration on the elected government in Kerala, the state he is ‘governing.’ He seems convinced that he as governor has a political role to play as much as the ministers of the state. Result: An ugly situation that has been saved from becoming a public (…)

• Twenty 20, A Dangerous Trend from Kerala | Sukumaran C V

  2 January 2021, by Sukumaran C.V.

  Kerala may perhaps be the most political state in India. But in the recently concluded local body elections, the people of four panchayats in Ernakulam district of the state proved that Kerala can dangerously be apolitical too. Kitex Garments, the company that pollutes the surrounding water bodies and paddyfields in Kizhakkambalam Panchayat was denied licence by the panchayat governing body 8 years ago. Then, the Kitex Garments-Anna Aluminium group CEO Mr. Sabu Jacob, in accordance with the (…)

• Far from liberating farmers, farm laws put them at the mercy of government | Jean Drèze

  2 January 2021

  Synopsis
  It is, of course, right to make space for regulation in the trade area. The idea that unregulated markets serve the public interest, quite flawed in general, is also odd in the case of agricultural marketing. Unregulated agricultural markets often raise problems related to uncertainty, equity, collusion, quality control, asymmetric information, economies of scale, contract enforcement and abuse of non- economic power, among other possible sources of so-called ‘market failure’. (…)

• The Kashmir valley has rejected PM Narendra Modi’s ’Gram Swaraj’ | Bharat Bhushan

  2 January 2021

  by Bharat Bhushan
  Prime Minister Modi has described the just-completed third tier local body elections to the District Development Councils (DDCs) in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) as realisation of Mahatama Gandhi’s vision of “Gram Swaraj”. However, they are hardly likely to satisfy local Kashmiri aspirations for the restoration of basic democratic freedoms or dampen international criticism.
  The DDC’s governance mandate is limited to just five subjects– welfare, health, education, finance (…)

• COVID has blurred the lines between waged, coerced and trafficked labour in India | Subir Sinha

  2 January 2021

  by Subir Sinha
  21 December 2020
  Labourers in India barely made ends meet before the pandemic. Many are now facing catastrophe.
  Numerous news outlets and activist groups in India have reported an increase in trafficking, bonded labour, and slave-like working conditions in the past weeks. The two main stories were the rescue of young boys from a basement bangle factory in Rajasthan and Gujarat and the rescue of young girls from sex work and domestic servitude. Instead of seeing (…)

• US Presidential Elections: Abki Baar Biden Sarkar | K N Ninan

  2 January 2021

  by K N Ninan
  Joseph R. Biden, Jr and Kamala Harris created history by clinching the 2020 US Presidential elections. The electoral college which met on December 14 officially confirmed the election results with Biden getting 306 electoral votes as against 232 for Trump. Many records have been shattered. Joe Biden at 78 years will be the oldest person elected as US President. He is also the second catholic to be elected as US President, the first being John F. Kennedy in November 1960. Like (…)