Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Economic Survey 2015-16: India under the Shadow of Neoliberalism

  9 March 2016, by Girish Mishra

  Even though the neoliberal dispensation has collapsed all over the world, its votaries in the corridors of power in India are behaving like the proverbial boy on the burning deck. They believe in the mantra of TINA (there is no alternative). It becomes quite obvious by casting even a cursory glance on the cover of Economic 2015-16, placed in the two Houses of Parliament on March 15. It, in the words of the authors, “depicts the long and short run Phillips curves which highlight the (…)

• A Book-keeper’s Exercise

  9 March 2016, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  It’s like a political rope trick, Chidambaram’s maiden Budget as the Finance Minister of the United Front Government. Everyone from V.P. Singh and Somnath Chatterjee to the captains of the corporate giants have praised it and the Finance Minister coiuld go home in peace, as he has been anointed by the media as “Thiruvallu-var’s Disciple”. Indeed a long way that the young politician has travelled from the day when he promptly quit as the Commerce Minister to avoid being (…)

• Letter from Ex-Students of BHU against Dismissal of Prof Sandeep Pandey from IIT-BHU

  9 March 2016

  To
  Prof Girish Chandra Tripathi
  Vice-Chancellor,
  Banaras Hindu University,
  Varanasi — 221005, UP
  Copy to:
  Director, IIT-BHU, Prof Rajeev Sangal, and
  Dean of Faculty Affairs, IIT-BHU, Prof Dhananjay Pandey
  Dear Sir,
  We, the ex-students of Banaras Hindu University, are writing to you to express our deep worry about removal of Visiting Professor Sandeep Pandey allegedly for his “anti-national activi-ties”. He had been teaching a few branches of chemical engineering and a (…)

• Why Afzal Guru evokes a Controversy Everytime

  9 March 2016, by Sandeep Pandey

  In the context of the recent event at the Jawaharlal Nehru University to mark the hanging of Afzal Guru in which JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar has been arrested on the charge of sedition, we must also consider why the controversy over Afzal Guru refuses to die. Afzal Guru was hanged for his role in the 2001 Parliament attack case. But the Supreme Court admitted that there was no evidence to show that Afzal Guru was a member of any banned organisation nor any of the 80 (…)

• A Danger to Democracy

  9 March 2016, by Rajindar Sachar

  There is a figurative way of attributing intense stupidity to an individual or a political party in the idiom, ‘He is own worst enemy.’ This occurred to me by the idiotic way the BJP Central Government has handled the recent student protest at JNU. According to the Students’ Union, a meeting was held in the campus by some outsiders wherein slogans favouring Afzal Guru were raised by them. Students maintain that they condemned these slogans and they cannot be blamed. In the normal course the (…)

• Rise of Fascist Forces and Electronic Media

  9 March 2016, by Barun Das Gupta

  The nature of the second BJP Government under Narendra Modi is getting exposed by the day. The object is to subvert the Constitution which declares India to be a ‘socialist secular democratic’ republic. Those who took office by swearing by the Constitution are, day in and day out, denigrating the ideals of socialism, secularism and democracy. The entire Sangh Parivar, with all its affiliated bodies, is at it. What is more regrettable and insidious is the role a powerful section of the (…)

• The Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions—like Reservations. But where’s Hell These Days?

  9 March 2016, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  For the crying babies of Haryana, the promise of milk was not enough. They kept crying violently for the actual delivery of their elixir. The inexperienced State Government was too scared to do anything, bringing Delhi into the picture. Originally meant to ensure social justice, reservations have become too hot even for Delhi to handle, for Haryana’s Jats inspired Rajasthan’s Rajputs to go on the war path. When Jats and Rajputs rise, can Marathas be far behind? Looming over (…)

• Putin can’t Bend like Beckam, Tensions with the US will Rise

  9 March 2016, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The annual meeting of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), which is the successor organisation to the Soviet-era KGB is an important occasion to take the temperature in the ‘East-West’ relations. (The Cold War cliche is becoming useful once again.) President Vladimir Putin’s customary address at the FSB meeting was the hallmark of the occasion on February 25 in Moscow.
  The sensational part of Putin’s speech was his disclosure that the FSB is in possession of definite information that (…)

• On the Cobblestones of Freedom

  9 March 2016, by Badri Raina

  Come together
  on the cobblestones of freedom
  Unfurl the Tricolour
  Climb the Altar
  Speak out from the heart
  of Freedom in India
  of the Indian Constitution
  of the coagulated blood that unites
  dalits, adivasis, minorities,
  marginalised, poor workers and poor farmers
  of their pain, hunger and deprivation and
  of the struggle that lies ahead
  that must be waged together
  for India is waiting to listen to you.
  Suhas Borker There is a Spot upon the Earth
  There is a spot (…)

• Bogey of Sedition and Curbing Secular Forces

  9 March 2016

  by Arun Srivastava
  Nationalism has been the most misused manoeuvre by the ruling establishment in India to bully the political opponents and throttle the peoples’ protest and saner voice. We have seen how this was misused in the past by the Congress. Anyone protesting the machinations of the ruling clique would be dubbed anti-national. But what makes the present machination of the RSS and BJP in the case of JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar different is that the saffron brigade is preparing a (…)