Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• 

  United Resistance to Fascist Onslaught

  22 February 2016, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Where are we heading? The events of the last few days in and around New Delhi’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University have compelled one to bring this question to the focus of national attention.
  As if the hurling of the sedition charge against the JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar before throwing him in police custody and then Tihar Jail was not enough, the shocking spectacle on February 15 of lawyers associated with the ruling party at the Centre pouncing on (…)

• If Anti-National Means this, God Save Our Country

  22 February 2016

  Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNU Students’ Union President, addressed a gathering on the campus of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi on February 11 evening. The following day he was arrested on the charge of sedition for taking part in a march on February 9 in the JNU where anti-India slogans were raised.
  The following is the near-complete Hindi speech Kumar delivered on February 11, translated by J.P. Yadav of The Telegraph, Kolkata from a recording uploaded on YouTube. The recording does (…)

• Statements of Concern in Response to Police Crackdown at JNU on February 12, 2016

  22 February 2016

  • Actions in JNU an attempt at diverting the students anger over Rohith Vemula’s suicide and continued discrimination
  • Withdraw Police from JNU Campus, let there be an impartial enquiry in the incidents of February 9th by University
  • Release Kanhaiya Kumar immediately and withdraw all charges
  Delhi Police and its high-handedness has once again come to the scrutiny and makes us question if it is acting as a political tool rather than being the enforcer of the law and order situation (…)

• Upsurge of the Underprivileged / Conscience and Charar-e-Sharief

  22 February 2016, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Upsurge of the Underprivileged
  Whoever rules Uttar Pradesh gets the passport to Delhi. This has long been the rule during the days of the Congress hegemony. Actually, Uttar Pradesh can claim to have reared as many as seven Prime Ministers: Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Indira Gandhi, Charan Singh, Rajiv Gandhi, V.P. Singh and Chandra Shekhar. The only exceptions so far have been Morarji Desai and now Narasimha Rao.
  What is more significant is that the (…)

• Lessons from the Aamir Episode

  22 February 2016, by Kuldip Nayar

  I am not a film buff. But I do watch movies by actors like Aamir Khan because he acts naturally. Such actors make me feel as if I am not seeing a film but reliving my life. I must admit that I did not like Aamir Khan’s remark at the Tarkunde Annual Lecture that his wife had asked him whether they should migrate to some other country. Subsequently, he apologised and closed an ugly controversy in the country.
  But the Narendra Modi Government has once again revived the controversy by not (…)

• Intolerant India versus Make in India

  22 February 2016

  by Bincy Mathew
  With Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to cut down on his travel abroad in 2016, it is interesting to look back at the past year that had been dominated by headlines of not just the PM’s ‘selfies’ and his focused attention on cameras no matter where they were positioned, but also his ‘bonhomie’ with world leaders and several of his business tie-ups with the likes of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg who proposed the idea of Free Basics with the ‘stated’ intention of (…)

• We Learned Nothing from Mumbai’s Terror Attack—Will we Learn Something from Pathankot?

  22 February 2016, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  At the political level New Delhi handled the Pathankot terrorist strike wisely. Instead of rushing into kneejerk reactions as before, the Prime Minister’s chosen path of dialogue with Pakistan was reasserted. Pakistan was asked to
  take firm action against those linked to the attack. Nawaz Sharif’s phone call to Narendra Modi promising investigation and action pointed to a cooperative mood at the political level in Pakistan. What that would mean in practice is far from clear, (…)

• New Facets of old Black Money issue

  22 February 2016

  by Satrajit Dutta
  A meagre amount of Rs 4147 crores has been received by the Finance Ministry under the new the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) And Imposition of Tax Act, 2015 (UnFINA), during its 90-day ‘compliance window’ (till September 30, 2015) when a resident assessee holding such unreported incomes or assets abroad could declare them and pay the 30 per cent tax and an additional 30 per cent penalty for the assessment year 2016—17 (tax year 2015—16). Now as the (…)

• Tapi Gas Pipeline: Hopes And Challenges

  22 February 2016

  by R.G. Gidadhubli
  It is indeed a historic event that leaders of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India broke ground on the December 13, 2015 giving a big push to the long awaited TAPI gas pipeline project linking Central Asia and South Asia. This ceremony was held in Turkmenistan’s southern city of Mary in the Karakorum desert which is an important location on this proposed pipeline route. Some basic facts are as follws: the project will be costing about $ 10 billion; the total (…)

• Indo-Pak Diplomacy: Modi’s Pakistan Policy

  22 February 2016

  by Zainab Akhter
  Background
  The India-Pakistan conflict is categorised as one of the most enduring due to its continuity and longevity since the division of the sub-continent albeit with varying degrees. The crux of the dispute is largely over Kashmir, territories and water, besides a nuclear arms race since 1998. The unresolved disputes over time have resulted in deep-rooted mistrust and hostility between the two nations with a deep impact on the dimension of inter-state and societal (…)