Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

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  Letter to the President of India - Request to return the MMDR bill 2026 to parliament for reconsideration

  25 August

  Loktantrik Rashtranirman Abhiyan
  Smt. Draupadi Murmu H. E. the President of India New Delhi
  Sub: Request to return the MMDR bill 2026 to parliament for reconsideration.
  Esteemed Madam,
  Loktantrik Rashtranirman Abhiyan requests Your Excellency to return to the Parliament for reconsideration the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2026, which is now awaiting your assent.
  It is extremely harmful to the federal structure of our polity as envisioned in the (…)

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  How Erdogan Turned Turkey into a Fiefdom | M.R. Narayan Swamy

  25 August, by M R Narayan Swamy

  BOOK REVIEW From Life Itself Turkey and Istanbul in the Age of Erdogan
  by Suzy Hansen
  Profile Books When you read a political biography of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, you feel you are discovering modern-day dictators around the world. It is not a surprise that he once boasted: “Now there are only two experienced leaders in the world. They are myself and Vladimir Putin.”
  American journalist Suzy Hansen also puts Erdogan in the same bracket as Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping – men who insist on (…)

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  Music: Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, Bombay, India, 1963

  25 August

  Play
  Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, Bombay, India, 1963 | Music Diplomacy Archives by U.S. Department of State https://youtu.be/j2PHiNA1ziw?si=DqzTIdNPDsKQiL_u

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  Video: John Berger "The Benjamin’s theories: Art in Mechanical Reproduction" Ways of Seeing, Episode 1 (1972)

  25 August

• Targeting Muslim Protesters as Anti-Nationals | Arup Kumar Sen

  15 August, by Arup Kumar Sen

  Othering of Muslims is a recurring strategy pursued by Hindutva politics in contemporary India. This was manifested in the recent protests in Kolkata against police atrocities on the students/young protesters in New Delhi. It was reported in Altnews: “From the assembly to press briefings, Suvendu Adhikari repeatedly invoked communal tropes while defending the arrests made over the alleged violence during the July 24 Kolkata solidarity protest. Sixteen people arrested in the case – 15 of them (…)

• Jai Hind | Faraz Ahmad

  15 August, by Faraz Ahmad

  We were little kids when our parents taught us the National Anthem by heart. That’s because every time the National Anthem was played on the Radio all of us stood up and recited it together, even within the confines of our little home.
  When Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India whom we little children fondly called Chacha Nehru, addressed any public meeting, he would end it with raising the slogan ’Jai Hind’ three times and we kids screamed out loudly with enthusiasm (…)

• Jantar Mantar Notes —Togetherness during protests forging a bond for the future | Radhakanta Barik

  15 August, by Radhakanta Barik

  What happened to the crowd in Jantar Mantar? There were different groups from Ambedkarites to liberals and Marxists, but all lived in a small place in the rain and in a hot day and night without a fan except a hand fan. Visiting the place, one felt that there were another group sitting on dais popularly known as CJP leaders and in the evening, Sonam, while on hunger strike, gave a small talk for ten minutes, where he praised Modi, which disappointed me, but for his sacrifice as a hunger (…)

• District In-Charge Ministers and the Contradictions of Democratic Decentralization in Kerala: A Critical Examination | Jos Chathukulam & A. M. Jose

  15 August, by A. M. Jose, Jos Chathukulam

  Abstract
  Kerala has long been celebrated as one of the most advanced experiments in democratic decentralization in India. The state’s decentralization reforms, particularly following the implementation of the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments and the People’s Plan Campaign of 1996, transferred substantial functions, funds, and functionaries to Local Self-Government Institutions (LSGIs). District Panchayats, Block Panchayats, Gram Panchayats, Municipalities and District Planning (…)

• Development Without Justice: Hasdeo Arand and the Continuing Marginalization of India’s Adivasis | Anirban Mukherjee

  15 August

  I
  Introduction: The Hasdeo Arand Conflict in Context
  India’s constitutional democracy recognizes Adivasi or tribal communities as distinct social formations having special rights over land and forests. Ironically, some of the country’s richest tribal landscapes continue to be viewed as repositories of mineral wealth. Whenever coal, bauxite, iron ore, or other natural resources are discovered beneath forests inhabited by Scheduled Tribes, the language of development takes precedence over (…)

• The struggle between the Fourth International and the bureaucratic caste from the perspective of the 21st century

  15 August

  by Sindhunil Barman Roy
  I. Introduction: The Phantom in the Totalitarian Apparatus
  When Leon Trotsky formulated his criticism of the Soviet state in the 1930s, he was dealing with a political phenomenon that was not foreseen by standard Marxist theory. The Soviet Union had not gone back to capitalism, but it was clearly not a workers’ democracy. Instead, it had been taken over by what Trotsky called a bureaucratic caste, a parasitic layer of administrators, planners, and party (…)