Mainstream Weekly

Table of Contents, Mainstream, Jul 30, 2026

2026-07-29T22:04:22Z

* The 100-year Project: Planned Steps to Subvert Education | Papri Sen Sri Raman
* The Jantar Mantar Protests Were All About Accountability | Indira Jaising, Pratik Patnaik
* Scientists Exodus, A Loss For ISRO, Gain of Private Sector | Soma Marla
* Four Years After NEP 2020: What AISHE 2023–24 Reveals About India's Higher Education | Sunit Singh

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The 100-year Project: Planned Steps to Subvert Education | Papri Sen Sri Raman

Papri Sen Sri Raman — 2026-07-29T22:03:04Z

GUEST EDITORIAL
Like a flock of passing locusts clouding the sky of prosperity for the farmer, perhaps revolution came and left… the destruction it left in its wake is a template for the uncertain future of protest politics, the rise of ‘ridicule' as a political strategy and the loss of fear as tool of governance. For now, democracy has survived. Won? No.
Unlike Asian neighbours Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh, the Jantar Mantar protest has, however achieved far less than what the media (…)

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Hindutva got the cracks in its pyramid | Radhakanta Barik

Radhakanta Barik — 2026-07-29T22:02:14Z

Modi and Shah Regime are based on fear and suppression of masses. Modi felt himself the king and Shah is commander in chief. Both showed cruelty towards the citizens of India. They started campaign of hatred against the Muslims and they used bulldozer against the innocent people. Modi Shah brought the public property into the market for auction. It is carefully crafted in such a manner that all these public properties have gone to Adani and Ambani. Education has been pushed to medieval times (…)

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The Jantar Mantar Protests Were All About Accountability — A Must For Education Bodies, Police Forces And Courts | Indira Jaising, Pratik Patnaik

2026-07-29T22:02:09Z

July 28, 2026
‘kaise akash mein surakh nahin ho sakta, ek patthar to tabiyat se uchhalo yaaro' –-Dushyant Kumar
They Lifted A Book and made a hole in the sky.
Remember the young woman in Mumbai who stood with her arms flung wide and brought a police van to a halt? Remember the young woman at Jantar Mantar, thin from many days without food, lifting the Constitution of India above her head, not in anger, but in the way one lifts a lamp.
For weeks they had been told to lower it, to fold (…)

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The Cockroaches Came Together | Varna Sri Raman

Varna Sri Raman — 2026-07-29T22:00:52Z

A judge's insult became a political party, a sit-in at Jantar Mantar, and a march on Parliament that met lathis and tear gas on the first day of the Monsoon Session.
Underneath the satire sits an examination agency that has produced two leak scandals in three years, and a labour market that offered 8,868 railway posts to 1.22 crore applicants.
The student crowd is the oldest recurring actor in Indian politics, and the state's playbook against it has changed less since 1974 than the (…)

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Four Years After NEP 2020: What AISHE 2023–24 Reveals About India's Higher Education | Sunit Singh

2026-07-29T22:00:02Z

The Government launched the National Education Policy (NEP) in 2020. The policy promised a lot of things: no more rigid single-subject degrees, the start of 4-year undergraduate courses, multiple options to exit and enter college without losing credits, and a massive jump in the number of students getting higher education. But promises on paper are one thing, and ground reality is completely different. The Ministry of Education recently released the All India Survey on Higher Education (…)

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Reading Brutal Assertion of State Power in New Delhi | Arup Kumar Sen

Arup Kumar Sen — 2026-07-29T21:59:58Z

On July 20, 2026, New Delhi witnessed brutal assertion of state power against the young protesters. The Hindu reported (July 21, 2026): “Several people were injured…when the police cracked down on a Parliament march called by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) seeking the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan… At least 38 of the injured were taken to the Lady Hardinge Medical College and around 65 to the Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, with fractures, swellings, and head (…)

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How sincere is Modi in putting education back on rails? | Faraz Ahmad

Faraz Ahmad — 2026-07-29T21:59:08Z

The first non-Congress governments were formed in many states after the fourth general elections in 1967 and in Delhi Jana Sangh was elected to the Delhi Metropolitan Council, an advisory body with considerable powers to run the Delhi Administration. Late Vijay Kumar Malhotra, then a young Jana Sangh leader from West Delhi became the chief executive councillor and in his capacity as Leader of the House, he appointed L.K. Advani as the Chairman of the Council, the first non-elected chairman (…)

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The Unbroken Thread: How Today's Youth Movement Builds on Shaheen Bagh and the Farmers' Protests | K. Sahadevan

K. Sahadevan — 2026-07-29T21:58:23Z

We are witnessing a youth movement that began in the capital and is gaining strength day by day, spreading to different parts of the country while inspiring hope and aspiration among all those who believe in democracy. Sparked by examination irregularities, it continues to draw more students and young people, particularly from the middle class, along with increasing support from India's liberal intelligentsia.
There is no doubt that this is a youth-led movement of a kind rarely seen in (…)

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The Waning Sting of Sangh Parivar's Smears | K. Sahadevan

K. Sahadevan — 2026-07-29T21:58:21Z

For nearly a decade, the RSS and other Sangh Parivar organisations have systematically deployed a campaign of smear and slander against individuals and groups who dare to protest the Modi government's policies perceived as anti-people.
Through a pliant section of the media, they have sought to humiliate critics by branding them with convenient labels: “anti-national,” “Tukde Tukde Gang,” “Urban Naxal,” “Khan Market Gang,” “Andolanjeevi,” “libtard,” and “sickular.” Even journalists who (…)

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The Youth Are Demanding India's Constitutional Promise | Vaisakh Baiju

2026-07-29T21:57:27Z

The youth-led protests of the Cockroach Janta Party, or CJP, are not simply expressions of anger over examination irregularities. They represent a demand that the Government of India fulfil one of its most important constitutional responsibilities: providing accessible, equal, reliable and high-quality education.
The movement has brought together students, unemployed graduates and families affected by paper leaks, examination failures, delayed recruitment and declining confidence in (…)

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When Accountability and Morality Go Unheard | Preeti Chauhan

2026-07-29T21:55:37Z

Sonam Wangchuk- a renowned innovator, reformist educator, environmental conservationist and also the Magsaysay Award winner- has been sitting on a hunger strike demanding the resignation of union education minister, Dhramendra Pradhan, a demand that in the first place shouldn't have required any effort at all. It should have been the outcome once the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test(NEET) question paper was leaked again this year. Lakhs of students felt cheated, were out on the roads (…)

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Jantar Mantar Protest: Three Points for now | Prem Singh

Prem Singh — 2026-07-29T21:54:58Z

Yesterday, a friend asked me what my comment was on the ongoing protest at Jantar Mantar. When I remained silent, he said he had been waiting for my comment for several days. I gave my friend my rehearsed answer – "I have long since given up the task of saving the country." My friend said he had heard this many times, so please elaborate. I replied that since the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, I have stopped participating in political activities, making political statements, attending or (…)

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Jantar Mantar: A New Generation's Fight For Education and Democracy | Arun Mitra

Arun Mitra — 2026-07-29T21:52:56Z

July 23, 2026
There Must Be National Conversation On Academic Issues And Rights
Forty-six years ago, I participated in the "Job or Jail" campaign organized by the All India Students' Federation (AISF). Those memories returned with remarkable clarity on Sunday, July 19, when I spent nearly four hours with students at the AISF stall at Jantar Mantar, where four students were on a hunger strike.
The heat was relentless, and the crowd was so dense that breathing itself became difficult. (…)

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Open Letter from the Constitutional Conduct Group on police brutality in Delhi on 20 July 2026

2026-07-29T21:52:00Z

24 July 2026 To The Prime Minister of India The Union Home Minister The Lt. Governor of NCT of Delhi The Commissioner of Police, Delhi
Subject: Condemnation of Brutal Police Action Against Peaceful Student Protesters in Delhi on 20 July 2026 and Urgent Call for Accountability and Dialogue
We, the members of the Constitutional Conduct Group, a collective of former civil servants belonging to the All India Services and the Central Services with no political affiliation and committed to the (…)

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What Makes This Indian Student and Youth Movement Different? Legacies and Lessons in Uncompromising Idealism | Bhabani Shankar Nayak

2026-07-29T21:51:50Z

Students and youth are often dismissed by geriatric people as apolitical, depoliticised, lazy, immoral, unconcerned, and materialistic—too busy with their own lives, glued to digital platforms and social media. Acting on such perceptions, the ruling classes have taken India's young for granted. Thus, education—from school to higher education—remains low on the priority list, suffering from minimal investment and a glaring lack of political commitment to expanding science-based, secular (…)

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Scientists Exodus, A Loss For ISRO, Gain of Private Sector | Soma Marla

Soma S. Marla — 2026-07-29T21:51:07Z

During mid June, two incidents in Indian Space came to limelight, 120 top level scientists quit the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), while a private firm Skyroot, has successfully placed Vikram- 1 carrying small-payload satellites in orbit. Prime Minister Narendra Modi immediately congratulated Skyroot, saying the effort breaks the monopoly of the public sector and promotes the nation's self-reliance. Resignation or voluntary retirement requests from Group 'A' level scientific (…)

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Private Versus Public: Is Sovereign Power Of Democracy Controversial? | Sunita Samal

Sunita Samal — 2026-07-29T21:51:00Z

One might say, for example, the major corporations represent national interest ‘what is good for General Motors, is good for America'. Indeed, the corporate responsibility that is the lack of accountability or representation, is common refrain in many protests. The concept of the public goods and services were thus developed in the light of a legal theory that considered the public as patrimony of the state and the principle of general interest as an attribute of sovereign.
Whereas the (…)

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The New Battle for the Strait of Hormuz | Aftab Alam

2026-07-29T21:39:27Z

Barely a month after reopening the Strait of Hormuz under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed on June 17 to end the war, Iran has declared the waterway closed again “until further notice”—signalling the collapse of a deal many had regarded from the outset as inherently fragile. The resumption of hostility is a stark reminder of an enduring truth: it is far easier to start a war than to end one. Interestingly, the renewed confrontation is no longer centred on Iran's nuclear programme (…)

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Exclusionary Mission of SIR | Amal Mandal

2026-07-29T21:39:19Z

. Dearth of documents and obscurity as to the domicile and citizenship status of huge number of people generated confusion and consternation during the preparation of India's first electoral roll. Ornit Shani in her How India Became Democratic (2017) highlighted one representation that urged the central authority to fix “vision first and revision afterwards". Obviously, the vision dictates the mission, which then influences the outcome. The vision of the Election Commission of India (EC) had (…)

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The Invisible Burden of Care in India | Aneesh K A and Arya Joshi

2026-07-29T21:38:47Z

India's ongoing demographic transition, marked by rising life expectancy and the growing prevalence of chronic illnesses, has significantly intensified the demand for long-term care and support. The projected expansion of the elderly population in the coming decades is expected to deepen the country's dependence on long-term informal care; unlike welfare-oriented states, where institutional mechanisms partially absorb these responsibilities, caregiving in India continues to be overwhelmingly (…)

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Interview with Antonio Negri —fragment of an interview | Leonardo Caffo

2026-07-29T21:38:41Z

June 2026
Antonio Negri was an Italian political philosopher who in his time courted controversy and was even jailed for links with Communist organisations. Leonardo Caffo talked with him about the future of the Left.
This is a fragment of an interview with the late Toni Negri I conducted in Paris several years ago during my doctoral research. It was originally commissioned by the newspaper Corriere della Sera, but was ultimately rejected by my editor at the time with the statement, (…)

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CDNP Statement Condemning the violation of the rights of project-affected people of Ken-Betwa Interlinking

2026-07-29T21:37:41Z

14 July, 2026
Cancel the project which will only benefit the political-contractor lobby, compensate the people, and implement decentralized alternatives to make Bundelkhand water-secure, and also protect nature and livelihoods
As the Chita Andolan of people protesting against their displacement by the Ken-Betwa river interlinking project enters its 12th day, Campaign to Defend Nature and People (CDNP) expresses its solidarity with them. We condemn the interlinked illegalities and (…)

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The All India Christian Council Opposes the FCRA Amendment Bill and Calls on all Parties to Resist it

2026-07-29T21:37:38Z

Press Statement
For Immediate Release
Hyderabad, 27 July 2026,
The All India Christian Council views with deep alarm the government's evident determination to bring the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026 — widely known as FCRA 2.0 — before Parliament in the current Monsoon Session for consideration and passage. We oppose this Bill, and we call on every political party that values the Constitution to resist it.
A Bill revived without consultation
This Bill (…)

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Joint Statement from Central Trade Unions and Samyukt Kisan Morcha - jul 29, 2026

2026-07-29T21:37:26Z

29th July 2026
Press Release
The following joint statement issued to the media by the Central Trade Unions and Samyukt Kisan Morcha
National Convention of Workers and Farmers Resolves to Intensify Coordinated and United Struggles Against Anti-People Policies The National Convention of Workers and Farmers, jointly organised by the Central Trade Unions (CTUs), Sectoral Federations and Associations, along with the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) concluded today at the Talkatora Stadium, New (…)

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Cultural Transformation at the End of Soviet Socialism

2026-07-29T21:36:43Z

BOOK REVIEW The Spirit of Socialism: Culture and Belief at the Soviet Collapse by Joseph Kellner
Cornell University Press 2025. 242 pp. (cloth), ISBN 978-1-5017-8151-3 Reviewed by Margaret McCool
Joseph Kellner's monograph, The Spirit of Socialism: Culture and Belief at the Soviet Collapse, offers a fresh and illuminating perspective on how ordinary Soviet citizens navigated the collapse of the Soviet Union by turning to new cultural phenomena to orient themselves to a rapidly changing (…)

- 2026 / Book Review