Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Water and Spirituality

  7 May 2016

  by Ishrat Jahan
  Introduction
  The planet earth is endowed with a number of marvellous natural forces and natural resources as well. Each of these forces has a specific role. Of these forces water, wind, fire, ether, sunshine, moonlight, earth etc. are functioning eternally ever since the Universe was born. The watery world covers nearly three quarters of the earth’s surface. The under- water world is still a mystery and an abode of at least 20,000 species of fishes, amphibians, reptiles, (…)

• Free Speech’s Relation to Objective Contribution to Public Sphere or Social Discourse

  7 May 2016

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Aejaz Ahmad
  Offend, Shock, or Disturb: Free Speech under the Indian Constitution by Gautam Bhatia; Oxford University Press; 2016; pages: 347 (Hardcover); Price: 750.
  Gautam Bhatia’s magnum opus Offend, Shock or Disturb is the most comprehensive examination of the free speech discourse in the Indian Constitution from the doctrinal, comparative and philosophical vantage points. Notwithstanding his legal background, the author has masterfully avoided legal bias around an (…)

• Are Not Flyovers a Menace to the People? - The Case of Kolkata Flyover Collapse

  7 May 2016

  by Debarati Sarkar
  Development is incomplete without expansion of the physical infrastructure of any country. India has re-emerged as one of the fastest growing economies in the world. In India, the infrastructure sector currently accounts for 26.7 percentage of the country’s industrial output and thus remains a useful tool to balance the economy. According to Assocham-Ernst and Young, infrastructure, including roads, bridge, power, highways, airports and railways, have emerged as an asset (…)

• Karl Marx’s Discovery of Fictitious Capital

  7 May 2016, by Anil Rajimwale

  May 5 this year marks Karl Marx’s 198th birth anniversary. On that occasion we are carrying the following article.
  Karl Marx made great discoveries regarding fictitious capital and the money form of capital. They are of seminal importance to understand the contemporary contradictions between finance and productive/industrial capital. The references to fictitious capital can be found in Chapter 29 of Volume III of his great work Capital and in his Theories of Surplus Value, Part III. Marx (…)

• Libya’s Four Governments

  7 May 2016, by Harish Chandola

  The Western governments and NATO members are now regretting the war they had launched on oil-rich Libya, where the situation is becoming uncontrollable, because its warring governments are not willing to come together and Islamic State elements controlling its coastline are able to infiltrate from there into African countries, including Niger and Chad, to enlarge the conflict.
  Libya’s fourth government took office in Tripoli on March 30. Called the Government of National Accord, it was (…)

• Need For Legal Justice

  7 May 2016

  by Bhat Rasif Manzoor and Mohammad Yousuf Dar
  Legal justice looks utopian, rather invisible, in societies with big chunks of poor and illiterate population unless the government and its flawless delivery system steps in with probable remedies. Rich people generally seek privilege through courts when they are involved in suits with the poor as the latter can hardly afford the court fee and wakil fee required for pleading their cases. The result is in the form of injustice and exploitation (…)

• DUTA demands Revocation of Suspension of Dr G.N. Saibaba

  7 May 2016

  The Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) Executive, in its meeting held on April 27, 2016, discussed the matter of Dr G.N. Saibaba, Associate Professor, RLA College. The DUTA Executive condemns the attacks on Dr G.N. Saibaba and other teachers of the college and the failure of the administration in preventing such incidents.
  The DUTA finds it unfortunate and unacceptable that, instead of taking responsibility for maintaining law and order in the College, the administration has (…)

• A Savage Civilisation

  7 May 2016

  May 9, 2016 marks the seventy-first anniversary of Victory over Fascism; and on May 8 falls the one hundred and fifty-fifth birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. As our homage to Gurudev on this occasion we are reproducing this letter written by him to Amiya Chakravarty from Gauripur Bhavan, Kalimpong on June 20, 1940. —Editor
  by Rabindranath Tagore
  A few centuries back European civilisation had suddenly started to hatch a large brood of vaishyar1children. Eager for profit these (…)

• Bengal Polls, Uttarakhand, Chopper Deal

  30 April 2016, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  The fifth phase of the West Bengal State Assembly elections is taking place day after tomorrow, that is, on Saturday, April 30, and the campaign for that phase of polling has come to an end this evening. The most significant event in the last few days in the Bengal polls has been a joint public meeting in Kolkata’s Park Circus Maidan yesterday addressed, inter alia, by Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi and former West Bengal CM and CPM leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. This is (…)

• Brightening Prospects of Indo-Russian Cooperation in Oil and Gas

  30 April 2016

  by Hasan Hamidullah
  Moscow is seeking to decrease the dependence of its oil and gas industry on the West and for that purpose Russian energy companies are in search of new reliable partners and investors. The principal objective of the visit of the head of Russia’s major national oil giant, Rosneft, to India has been to tie up the OVL, Oil India Limited, Indian Oil Corporation and Bharat Petroleum in drilling operations in the zone of the Russian Arctic.
  Western sanctions against Russia (…)