Greetings to Mainstream

[(The following message of greetings were received for the January 29, 2013 meeting in the Capital to mark Mainstream’s fifty years.)]

Thank you so much for the invitation. In fact I was thinking of it today. I am slightly unhappy because I am missing something I was so eager to attend. But I feel proud that I and my husband have written in Mainstream for more than forty years at least. I remember Nikhilda and Chitta Ranjan on this occasion.

January 24, 2013
Thiruvananthapuram

K. Saradamoni (tiru25@gmail.com)

♦

The Mainstream journey, as Girish writes, needs to be understood as one that has been integral to our post-independence history, both in what it has sought to uphold and to oppose. A shining light indeed, and so much is owed to your dedicated and informed commitment to its production and system of values.

January 3, 2013
New Delhi

Badri Raina (badri.raina@gmail.com)

♦

Mainstream is a very important instrument for the common people’s struggle for life, livelihood, dignity and justice. It is a genuine Left-wing journal because it is the unfailing tribune of the poor and the oppressed. It is the voice of patriotism which upholds national interests but never indulges in chauvinism and draws lessons from other nations’ experiences. It is active in promoting Indo-Pak peoples’ co-operation. Dealing with current topics and also issues which are likely to loom large in the foreseeable future, it uses common people’s idiom and avoids scholasticism. Its writers in general give not only analyses of events but also point to feasible solutions as guides to activists. It provides space to all free minds. It works as a national unifier. An ideologue of RSS persuasion once told me that the journal Mainstream gives him food for thought. That is its best testimonial.
Bereft of advertisements from large business houses, it has to keep its print order low for it has to incur loss for every printed copy. Usually journals with high ideals become short-lived. Mainstream has creditably completed fifty years of existence. Sumit and his family have single-handedly borne this killing burden. I wish Mainstream a long, very long life with utmost cooperation from its devoted band of workers, contributors and readers.

January 27, 2013
New Delhi

Sailendra Nath Ghosh (sailendranathghosh@yahoo.com)