Mainstream Weekly

Afghanistan: Abandoned by the World | Apratim Mukarji

Apratim Mukarji — 2024-02-24T02:53:14Z

The world's most dangerous terrorists, the Taliban, are now in the third year of their illegitimate rule over Afghanistan, and their connectivity with the outside world is rising constantly. “The world has abandoned us,” says a prominent Afghan rights activist after escaping to the West.
Since August 2021 when the Taliban, originally raised and nurtured by the United States and Pakistan and sheltered in the latter country, have travelled a long way to have become the rulers of a (…)

- 2024

India and the World: Loud claims, little ground support | Apratim Mukarji

Apratim Mukarji — 2024-01-05T02:31:08Z

Of late, Narendra Modi's loud declarations and slogans are failing to match the ground realities. One can easily point out this inadequacy in the case of three specific instances in the sphere of foreign policy. As in all other sectors of governance, foreign policy is no longer the domain of foreign office diplomats and experts but is solely determined by the Prime Minister himself. The concerned Minister S. Jaishankar has proved himself to be a faithful associate whose main job now is to (…)

- 2024

Why has communism failed to permanently change the world? | Apratim Mukarji

Apratim Mukarji — 2023-11-25T04:14:04Z

BOOK REVIEW
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Yuddhakalin Sahitya Samgraha 1942 Editor: Utpal Sengupta
Publisher Parul Prakashani Pvt. Ltd., 8/3, Chintamani Das Lane, Kolkata 700009 info[at]parulprakashani.in Price Rs. 500.00
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Eminent economist John G. Gurley thought that India was one country where communist and Marxist tenets should take root, along with Italy, France, and Japan. “Marxism and Capitalism are now engaged in an intense, worldwide struggle. When Americans look beyond their borders, many (…)

- 2023 / Book Review

Lanka : as Gotabaya returns… | Apratim Mukarji

Apratim Mukarji — 2022-09-09T17:05:21Z

Two newspaper headlines define Sri Lanka as it was on the 10th of July 2022 that an Indian newspaper The Sunday Express headlined the previous day's story as “Colombo Overthrow.” The 4 September 2022 edition of the same newspaper captioned its story as “Gotabaya gets special security and bungalow on return to Colombo.”
The first story related to former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's great flight to escape the raging public on Colombo streets. The second story descibed how Gotabaya, the (…)

- 2022

Autocracy in Lanka with a new face | Apratim Mukarji

Apratim Mukarji — 2022-07-29T17:11:00Z

Sri Lanka is now witnessing a much finer version of sophisticated and camouflaged autocracy than ever before. With the ‘fleeing' former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa now scheduled to return home on 14 August after he had fled in fear of his life, President Ranil ‘Wily Fox' Wickremasinghe and Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena have set about running the country with an iron hand.
Their plus point is their ability to coat harsh words with reason while putting forth tough principles and (…)

- 2022

Post-Gotabaya: Is Lanka confused? | Apratim Mukarji

Apratim Mukarji — 2022-07-22T16:02:00Z

Their protest against misgovernance has succeeded beyond belief, but Sri Lankans appear to be a bit confused. They are of course rejoicing at the complete fall of the Rajapaksas from absolute power. Yet, one sentence in ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksas's resignation letter has sent them thinking and thinking deeply.
“I have contributed my utmost for the country and in the future too, I will contribute for the country,” Gotabaya Rajapaksa said in his resignation letter which was (…)

- 2022

Sri Lanka: Gotabaya's grand game-plan | Apratim Mukarji

Apratim Mukarji — 2022-07-08T18:19:38Z

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, fighting a united population, has now embarked upon a grand strategy to bring all politicians under his wing, irrespective of their party affiliations, so that the people in the country are fooled and deprived of their natural right to justice. It is a devilish plan to rob the Sri Lankans of their united fight against him, the last of the Rajapaksas, a clan that had grabbed all powers in the recent years in its hands and was ruling the country at (…)

- 2022

Exodus from Sri Lanka to India | Apratim Mukarji

Apratim Mukarji — 2022-05-27T18:57:58Z

The searing and prolonged economic-political crisis in Sri Lanka has now expectedly turned into a refugee exodus from the island-nation to India, whch is the traditional haven for Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka.
The failure of the Sri Lankan government to tackle the economic crisis even two years after the first rumblings of deep discontent were heard has now gulvanised Sri Lankan society---consisting of all the three main religions, Sinhalese Buddhists, Hindu Tamils, and Muslims, and (…)

- 2022

Sri Lankans have risen | Apratim Mukarji

Apratim Mukarji — 2022-05-13T23:24:44Z

Sri Lanka will continue to boil until the Rajapaksa clan in toto goes. This message has come out loud and clear. The first month of protests, street demonstrations, encirclements of government offices and slow breakdowns of law and order all over the island-nation over the past one month have now graduated to direct action by the enraged people. And there is no end to all these because the Rajapaksas are not yet truly scared of people's power. They still seem to be confident in their ability (…)

- 2022

The Taliban originated in Afghanistan, Not Pakistan | Apratim Mukarji

Apratim Mukarji — 2021-11-05T12:09:07Z

For long Afghanistan scholars had supported the theory, promoted by the Taliban themselves and Pakistan, that their particular brand of jihadism was developed in Afghan refugee camps in Baluchistan. New data brought forward by an Indian scholar have demolished it proving conclusively that it was developed in Afghanistan itself by Afghan madrassas.
Anand Gopal has claimed that at least sixty percent of the Taliban ideology was developed in Afghanistan's pre-1979 (the year of the Soviet (…)

- 2021