Mainstream Weekly

Mysterious missing pages of Babarnama | Sankar Ray

Sankar Ray — 2023-01-06T23:10:58Z

The Baburnama, English (Memoirs of Babur), memoir of a poet-prince from Central Asia and the founder of Mogul empire in India , Zahiru'd-din Muhamad Babur (1483–1530), translated by Annette Susannah Beveridge from the original Turki and published in 1922. It was originally written in Chaghatai Turkish which is different from Turki. Mrs Beveridge's version, mysteriously spiked pages of the diary between 3 April and 17 September 1528 . Mrs Beveridge was the wife a British ICS officer Henry (…)

- 2023

Marx's mathematical manuscripts - an overview | Sankar Ray

Sankar Ray — 2022-08-26T20:10:34Z

“Mathematics itself is always an empty calculus, pure syntax. To use it in social theory, we must give its terms meanings. We need semantics. We must ‘interpret' the calculus”, wrote Roger Kopl, professor of finance at the Whitman School of Management of Syracuse. Marx scholar and polymath Pradip Baksi in his latest book, ‘Karl Marx and Mathematics, A Collection of Essays in Three Parts refers to Bruno Bukhberger, professor of Computer Mathematics, Research Institute for Symbolic (…)

- 2022

Barunda - a tribute

Sankar Ray — 2021-11-05T12:15:27Z

The end of mundane innings of Barun Das Gupta screeched a four-decade long association of mine to a permanent halt and Barunda like Jollyda- Jolly Mohan Kaul, an outstanding communist in the pre-split CPI– was a cricket lover who used to be glued to the TV screen during one-day matches. I knew about him as both of us used to write almost regularly for ‘This Fortnight', edited by Raman Swamy. One day when I was the senior sub-editor of now-defunct Capital Weekly in the very early 1980s, BP (…)

- 2021

Remembering J Mohan | Sankar Ray

Sankar Ray — 2021-09-25T01:19:13Z

Looking back at the early issues of now-defunct Now weekly, founded by Prof Humayun Kabir with Samar Sen as its founder-editor, I remember Calcutta Diary at alternate weeks by AM and J Mohan –both very well read. It is well-known that AM was Dr Ashok Mitra who also used to write under another pseudonym, Charan Gupta. But readers at large were not aware that J Mohan was none other than Jolly Mohan Kaul who would have been 100+plus now. Jollyda – as he was to numerous old-timers like me- (…)

- 2021

Mamata Banerjee into the Vedanta trap | Sankar Ray

Sankar Ray — 2021-08-07T12:54:20Z

Willy-nilly, the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has walked into the corporate trap of Vedanta Limited (erstwhile Vedanta Resources plc), incorporated in UK, an NRI Anil Agarwal-led group, diversified natural resources company with interests in zinc-lead-silver, Iron ore, steel, copper, aluminum, power, oil and gas and infamous for wanton violation of environmental norms. In 2018, mass protests against Vedanta's Sterlite Copper subsidiary at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu for causing (…)

- 2021

Official Marxism in India disappearing in sync with global trend | Sankar Ray

Sankar Ray — 2021-06-04T21:17:38Z

The crisis of Marxism the world over surfaced in the late twentieth century. The fault doesn't lie in Marx, but in so-called Marxist parties.
Extremely incorrigibly optimist sections of the concerned about the future of India's official Marxist parties (better be termed ‘Leninist') such as the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, and variants of Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) dream of comeback of those parties. The reality is that Indian Leftist (…)

- 2021

Bangladesh Left Bloc Demands Withdrawal Of Case Against Journalist | Sankar Ray

Sankar Ray — 2021-05-29T13:53:55Z

May 25, 2021
Human Rights Violation Cases Are Increasing Under Hasina Regime
Bam Ganatantrik Jote (Left Democratic) front comprising Bangladesh Samajtontri Dal, Communist Party of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Samajtontri Dal Marxvadi, United Communist League of Bangladesh, Samajtontri Andolan and Ganatantric Biplabi Dal in a joint statement demanded that the criminal case against the leading Bengali morninger Prothom Alo senior reporter Rozina Islam be withdrawn unconditionally. The forty-two (…)

- 2021

When Election Commission pits itself against the electorate | Sankar Ray

Sankar Ray — 2021-04-10T02:25:13Z

The role of the Election Commission of India (EC) with Sunil Arora, the Chief Election Commissioner at the helm is far from being impartial and neutral especially in West Bengal, His term is ending on 12 April and grapevine has it that a gubernatorial post awaits him as a reward of his unflinching performance of dancing to the tune of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his closest associates than honouring the august Nirvachan Sadan whose sanctity had been heightened by former CECs such as T (…)

- 2021

Poll vault: Rambling notes | Sankar Ray

Sankar Ray — 2021-04-02T18:21:52Z

A white coloured Mahindra XUV500 jeep (AS 10B 1022), owned by the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate from Patharkandi in Karimganj district in Assam was caught red-handed by people around for carrying electronic voting machines (EVM). This makes independent and politically unattached scribes like us deeply suspicious of the role of the Election Commission of India without the collusive role of whose higher-ups (with the ruling BJP to rig the elections) couldn't happen. This highly criminal (…)

- 2021

Growing Global Criticism of Narendra Modi Government | Sankar Ray

Sankar Ray — 2021-03-12T15:44:12Z

What is ‘international conspiracy' in the political lexicon of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi is international solidarity to libertarians the world over. Mind you, Modi termed the three-month-plus-long farmers' stir in the borders of National Capital Region in his pre-election campaign in West Bengal at Haldia during the end-February. Around the same time on 27 February Toronto Star carried a full-page advertisement, expressing solidarity with the struggling farmers and (…)

- 2021