Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• 

  Prof Anisuzzaman: One more light goes out

  17 May 2020

  The Business Standard (Dhaka), 14 May, 2020
  by Mir Mohammad Jasim
  Bangladesh has lost one of its most respected scholars, pre-eminent academic and luminary in the passing of National Professor Anisuzzaman He was one of Bangladesh’s brightest stars, through thick and thin, whose light shone on many. Eminent educator, writer, national professor, and luminary Anisuzzaman passed away on Thursday. The 83-year-old, who was suffering from several complications, breathed his last around (…)

• 

  Starting trains with only AC coaches and Rajdhani fares reeks of elitism and is only the latest example of the government’s discriminatory attitude

  17 May 2020

  DOCUMENT
  Socialist Party (India)
  PRESS RELEASE | 12 May 2020
  The government has announced that railway services on several routes will be resumed on May 12. However, these trains will have only AC coaches, and the train fares will be equal to those of the elite Rajdhani trains. This appears to be a highly discriminatory decision. It will allow a very small section of rich people to start travelling around the country while completely excluding the vast majority of the population, who (…)

• The COVID Crisis Tsunami for the Poor

  17 May 2020, by S G Vombatkere

  13.05.2020/SGV
  Viruses
  Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 which causes Covid-19 is just one of the more recent viruses in our environment, and it is here to stay [“One in 3 recover, time to learn to live with virus, says govt”; Deccan Herald; 09.05.2020, p.1]. It will add one more virus to the billions of viruses to which human bodies are already host.
  The problem faced by humanity is not so much about Covid-19 per se, or about virus-caused disease or death, but more about their aggravating (…)

• Proper Understanding of COVID-19 Threat for Balanced Policy Response

  17 May 2020, by Bharat Dogra

  The COVID-19 crisis has appeared this year as one of the great disruptors of our times. To minimize distress and formulate the best policy it is important to have a proper understanding of the threat. This paper is written in six parts with the aim of promoting understanding for better policy. A basic theme of this paper is that there is need for precautions but not for panic. A balanced response based on combining essential precautions with protection of livelihoods and food security is (…)

• They are going to the country where their country is lost - Economic crisis of migrant workers after returning home: A study of gold makers of Ahmedabad

  17 May 2020

  Migrant workers are backbone of the society in developing countries. They have been jobless from the first day of nationwide lockdown for out breaking coronavirus disease pandemic. For starting the third stage of lockdown they have began to come back to own houses by their continuous efforts and assistance of government also. We have emphasised the misery condition of the migrant workers who were engaged in jewellery making in Ahmedabad and Surat cities of Gujarat state for a long year. After reaching to native village they are also in poor economic condition being jobless. As the lockdown is going on still now all the economic activities are stand still, they are not getting any job at this time. They are fighting against both survival of life and Covid -19 pandemic. Despite of government assistance they are unable to maintain their families adequately. This paper aims to understand the socio-economic conditions that ensure the standard of living of gold making ornaments workers who have recently returned home.

• Payment of wages and retrenchment in times of Covid19: Will State directives protect workers? | Kingshuk Sarkar

  17 May 2020

  by Kingshuk Sarkar*
  State has issued direction to employers to pay wages and salaries and not to retrench workers during the period of lockdown in the present covid-19 pandemic. Still, there are many instances where wages and salaries are not paid. Few workers got retrenched too. Employers have said that they did not have money to pay wages and salaries. They are demanding fiscal bailout. The legal options are there but those are complex. Whether workers benefit from government’s direction (…)

• A good crisis and exemption from labour laws: Miseries of Indian working class | Kingshuk Sarkar

  17 May 2020

  by Kingshuk Sarkar*
  States are providing industries exemptions from the application of labour laws and also extending the period of working hours. The apparent reason is that this will boost investment and employment. Are there any credible evidences to support this presumption particularly when the entire economy and working class in in dire straits? Or this good crisis is a pretext to implement a pre-designed agenda?
  Keywords: Labour Law, Labour Reform, Labour Flexibility, Labour (…)

• Deconstructing Performativity, Power and Populism amid COVID-19

  17 May 2020

  by Zahoor Ahmad Dar and Debdutta Chakraborty
  Keywords: Power, Populism, COVID-19, Public Sphere, Politics of stupidity, Alternative Communities.
  A global crisis in the face of a pandemic has engulfed the world. The systemic structures of the world and its rulers have been thrown into a whirlpool of chaos and cacophony. Since the spread of Covid-19, the heads of states are declaring their response as a ‘war’ against coronavirus. In February 2020, the Chinese President Xi Jinping, (…)

• Corona Pandemic: Time for politicisation of labour consciousness

  17 May 2020

  by Prem Singh
  The country is one and a half months into the lockdown but the plight of the toiling labourers at the country-wide level continues unabated. Every day huge crowds of workers suffer from hunger, insult and alienation/ignorance in their own country, from their own countrymen and the images are for every one of us to see. It may be noted that these labourers mostly comprise of young men and women; their children are so small that they are either in the age of playing in their (…)

• Our immunity is innate

  17 May 2020, by Suhas Borker

  You dare not make us the nowhere people You dare not stop us from reaching our hearths We are the harvests and the grains and all the food We are the furnaces and the smelters and all the steel We are the mills and the looms and all the fibre We are the factories that cast and mould the future We are the fires that stoke and alight the economy Remember never to push us against the wall Remember without us there is nothing Only you are in your antiseptic and sensitised bubbles Only you are (…)