Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Social Activist of Rajasthan Dies after 32 Days’ Fast

  21 November 2015, by Bharat Dogra

  COMMUNICATION
  It is a measure of the growing insensitivity of the authorities that serious efforts were not made in time to save the life of leading social activist and former MLA Gurusharan Chhabra. This social activist died after 32 days of a protest fast to demand prohibition and a strong Lok Ayukta in Rajasthan.
  Although he was elected as an MLA from Suratgarh several years back, Chhabra was known more as a Gandhian social activist than a political leader. He was deeply troubled by (…)

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  Inestimable Value of the Bihar Mandate

  16 November 2015, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  The results of the five-phase Bihar Assembly polls are out. Proving most of the poll predictions wrong, the electorate of the State handed a decisive verdict by giving a two-thirds majority to the JD(U)-RJD-Congress’ grand alliance or mahagathbandhan leaving the BJP (which runs the government at the Centre with guidance from the RSS) and its allies way behind. The final figures are as follows: the BJP and its allies secured 58 out of 243 seats whereas the mahagathbandhan won as (…)

• Bihar Poll Results

  16 November 2015, by Barun Das Gupta

  Suddenly the spell-binder finds that his spell has been broken. The dream merchant, who peddled his never-to-be-realised dreams very successfully just a year ago, suddenly finds that there are no buyers for his wares. Suddenly one discovers that the people are not so gullible as one had thought. Suddenly the bakers of Nagpur, specialising in making hate-cakes, find these are getting mouldy, they are not selling.
  Why have things changed so completely in just a year-and-a-half’s time? The (…)

• The Republic Strikes Back: Indian Democracy Breathes Again

  16 November 2015, by Badri Raina

  What Delhi inaugurated at the beginning of the year, Bihar has sealed at the end, namely, the revolt of reason against supervening gumption. Facts and arguments are once again to the fore, defeating bare-faced assertion and false appropriation. Little women and men together have turned back the swagger of the all-assuming colossus, deluded into insufferable hubris by consuming self-love and supercilious theatrics of personal power.
  A year-and-a-half has proved too long a career for muscle, (…)

• A Victory For Secularism

  16 November 2015, by Bharat Dogra

  Trust the Indian voters to protect the basic constitutional principles whenever these are most threatened. This time it was the turn of the politically alert Bihar voter to intervene on behalf of the cherished heritage of social harmony and based on it the constitutional principles of equality for all religious communities as well as secularism.
  Certainly other issues, including those related to development, issues were also important and the Nitish Government has a good record on this. (…)

• Bihar Assembly Elections 2015: Did spectra of horror Ranvir Sena’s patrons and protagonists influence votes?

  16 November 2015, by A K Biswas

  The RJD, JD (U) and Congress coalition has inflicted a crushing defeat on the BJP and its allies in the just concluded Vidhan Sabha election 2015, successfully driving a lesson on political morality with desirable significance. It will help the vanquished see the intolerance, arrogance and aggression that jeopardised the civil society and peaceful life of the masses. In this context, it is only natural to focus on the reasons and factors for the victory of the RJD-JD(U)-Congress triumvirate (…)

• Bihar Speaks

  16 November 2015, by Arup Kumar Sen

  The massive victory of the Laloo-Nitish coalition in the Bihar Assembly elections signifies a verdict against the politics of hate and intolerance preached by the Modi-Amit Shah regime after the BJP came to power. It is also significant that the electoral verdict has belied the electoral forecasts of the corporatised media. The lone exit poll, the Axis exit poll, had predicted 169-183 seats for the grand Laloo-Nitish alliance, but its tally was withheld by CNN-IBN. The channel advertised the (…)

• Ved Bhasin — A Tribute

  16 November 2015, by Badri Raina

  You inaugurated your first flush Of youth by shoring up innocent Blood in the bylanes of your Beloved city. And then never Once looked back from doing what Had to be done to keep kashmiris Of all definition together against The hate-mongering, bigoted Sectarian. You wrote and spoke Fearlessly on behalf of the human, Never letting the petty-minded Ruffle your masterly composure. Not least of your contributions Is the daughter you gave us— Schooled in the steel of your Conviction that it is in (…)

• Massacre at Delhi

  16 November 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  I was on my way to Peshawar from Lahore to meet Khan Abdul Wali Khan, son of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Frontier Gandhi. My friend and I stopped at Abottabad, halfway, to have a cup of tea. The radio continuously blared that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had been assassinated by her Sikh security guards.
  It was a BBC broadcast. The All India Radio announcement came four hours later. There was no question of our proceeding further. But it was too late to catch the flight back to Delhi from (…)

• Why I am returning my Award

  16 November 2015, by Arundhati Roy

  The Sahitya Akademi is India’s premier institution of letters, with a stated commitment to “promoting Indian literature throughout the world”.
  Although I do not believe that awards are a measure of the work we do, I would like to add the National Award for Best Screenplay that I won in 1989 to the growing pile of returned awards. Also, I want to make it clear that I am not returning this award because I am “shocked” by what is being called the “growing intole-rance” being fostered by the (…)