Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Bihar politics turning to uncharted path | Arun Srivastava

  24 October 2020, by Arun Srivastava

  by Arun Srivastava
  Many things are happening for the first time in Bihar. This was for the first time the Unuion Finance Minister openly offered free coronavirus vaccination for all in the form of bribe to the voters of Bihar, it is also for the first time in the electoral political history of Bihar that election manifestos or “Sankalp Patra” of political parties have become topics of discussion and discourses in the social circle. The discussion is not confined to the living rooms of (…)

• Extremist thinking and the spectre of sedition | Vappala Balachandran

  24 October 2020

  by Vappala Balachandran *
  October 15, 2020
  While the Justice JN Patel-led Bhima Koregaon Commission is yet to finalise its report, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) filed a 10,000-page charge-sheet on October 9. The NIA felt that it was a ‘plot to damage the state’. Several civil rights activists and academics were charged for the gravest offences against the state, including arms training. Among them is 83-year-old Jesuit priest, Stan Swamy. A stunned Jharkhand Chief Minister (…)

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  Reason Wounded, Justice Insulted—Do Not Implicate Distinguished Women Scholars and Activists in False Cases | Bharat Dogra

  24 October 2020, by Bharat Dogra

  Letter to the Editor sent by Bharat Dogra
  I am sure that countless readers share the shock and distress which I felt on reading the statement by participants of the Mahila Ekta Yatra, published in the Mainstream dated October 17, regarding the mention of several of these women participants, known for their deep commitment to communal harmony, in the charge sheet filed in the context of communal riots in Delhi. It is a shocking and truly dystopian situation if women who take great risk to (…)

• Double Standards in Politics | Barun Das Gupta

  24 October 2020, by Barun Das Gupta

  Bye-elections for 28 Assembly seats in Madhya Pradesh are going to be held on November 3. If the Congress wants to come back to power, it has to win all the 28 seats. So the challenge for the Congress is high. Tempers are naturally running high. But what the Congress veteran and former MP chief minister Kamal Nath said in an election meeting was in very bad taste. He ridiculed the BJP candidate of that constituency, a dalit woman, as being an “item”. Item is not an abusive or derogatory (…)

• BJP’s Poll Promise of Free COVID Vaccine for Bihar Violates Model Code and is blatantly Partisan | S N Sahu

  24 October 2020, by S N Sahu

  The promise of free COVID vaccine to the people of BIhar as item no one in BJP election manifesto 2020 makes it the first political party in India to politicise the vaccine issue. Such gross decision making the vaccine a poll and election matter for seeking votes constitutes nothing short of a callous approach to deal with a pandemic which has flattened the curve of health, human and human security. Right since the month of March 2020 BJP has adopted a narrowly self-serving approach in (…)

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  A Masterpiece on India’s Missing Soldiers | M.R. Narayan Swamy

  24 October 2020

  by M.R. Narayan Swamy
  BOOK REVIEW
  Title: Missing in Action: The Prisoners who Never Came Back; Author: Chander Suta Dogra; Publisher: HarperCollins India; Pages: 340; Price: Rs 699
  This thoroughly researched book is a moving account of the agony suffered by the families of Indian soldiers who were captured in the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan, never to be seen again. It is not just an indictment of the Pakistani state which remained, over the decades, unmoved by the humanitarian (…)

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  Leah Samples Review of Mangalik, Aroop, Dealing with Doctors, Denial and Death

  24 October 2020

  Aroop Mangalik. Dealing with Doctors, Denial and Death. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. 274 pp. $22.00 (paper), ISBN 978-1-5381-2338-6.
  Reviewed by Leah Samples (University of Pennsylvania)
  Dr Aroop Mangalik wants you to know what it means to live well with a life-threatening illness. Here, “you” refers to the person dealing with a life-limiting disease, the parent of a child with an acute form of leukemia, or even the medical provider who wants to do more than offer treatment (…)

• Tribute to James Randi - A Cartoon | Jayaraj Vellur

  24 October 2020, by Jayaraj Vellur

• Covid-19 and the emerging International Balance of Power | P. S. Jayaramu

  24 October 2020

  by P. S. Jayaramu
  Historical international events impact not only relations among nations but also the balance of power and thereby affect the role they play in the international system. My purpose here is to assess the possible impact of Covid-19 on the international balance of Power. Before getting down to such a task, it is pertinent to briefly recapture the major historic occurances in the 20th century and the way it shaped the balance of power.
  Let me begin by going back to the (…)

• Nagorno-Karabakh: Unending Conflict | R G Gidadhubli

  24 October 2020

  by R G Gidadhubli Recent conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh have hit the headlines in global media. In fact, Armenia and Azerbaijan, the two neighboring republics in the Caucasian region of the former Soviet Union, have been locked up in the conflict since 1988, over breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is geographically situated in Azerbaijan the territory. As opined by some analysts there has been ‘frozen conflict’ over Nagorno-Karabakh since the breakup of the of the former (…)