Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Are MPs the Trustees of People?

  20 July 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  Over the years, I have found the Supreme Court in Pakistan, a country under constant influence of the military, is far more progressive than ours although India has been functioning in a free, democratic environment. Not long ago, lawyers in Pakistan fought and won the battle for supremacy of the Chief Justice who was sequestered and suppressed by the Army Chiefs like Zia-ul Haq and Pervez Musharraf.
  Once again, the Pakistan Supreme Court has made us see our face in the mirror. In an (…)

• The Real Face of Modi’s Governance

  20 July 2015

  by Arun Srivastava
  In the seventies when the message from Naxalbari was spreading fast to other parts of India and the police, especially the Calcutta Police, was brutally killing youths and students, particularly those from Presidency College and Jadavpur University, on the plea of being Naxalites at the directive of the Congress Government headed by Siddhartha Shankar Ray, a theatre group had produced a play Football which depicted the craziness of the Bengali people towards football at (…)

• Food and Nutrition Aspects in India: A Growing Paradox

  20 July 2015

  by Abhijit Chakraborty
  The recent discussion on Food and Nutrition aspects in India is related to the growing paradox in relation to the declining calorie consumption known as the calorie consumption puzzle. But the debate sometimes tries to overlook the larger problems of some select population groups and their anthropometric data in relation to calorie consumption. This paper in its limited aim has tried to figure out one such problem in the State of Kerala which is known as God’s own (…)

• Inculcating Ethical Values to Improve Current State of Governance

  20 July 2015

  book review
  Aarti Khosla
  Ethics for Governance—Reinventing Public Services by B.P. Mathur; Routledge India (Taylor and Francis India), New Delhi; August 2014; pages 408; Rs 495.
  The need for good governance in the country is often reiterated. It is also one of the promises made by every party while seeking votes as they know that people are fed up with the present state of governance. Efforts are made by every government in power to bring about certain changes to improve upon the (…)

• Controversy on the National Anthem

  20 July 2015

  COMMUNICATION
  The controversy over the national anthem, raked up by the Rajasthan Governor, once again highlights the bigotry and narrow-mindedness of a section of this country’s opinion-makers who, even after a lapse of 114 years, are not reconciled to the fact that Rabindranath Tagore did not compose Janaganamana as an eulogy for King George V. This is also evident from a perusal of the debate on the subject on the internet. By raking up the controversy they are again calling into (…)

• Pradyot Lal Is No More

  20 July 2015

  Pradyot Lal, a highly talented journalist who joined the profession in the 1980s, passed away at night on July 12, 2015. A product of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Pradyot started his journalistic career in Patriot where he worked for several years before joining Blitz. Thereafter he worked in The Asian Age where he wrote some brilliant pieces at the time when M.J. Akbar was editing the publication. He then worked in Sahara Times and Tehelka. He was associated briefly with (…)

• Far More Ominous

  11 July 2015, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  The Times of India has twice in the past few days editorially brought into focus the seriousness of the Vyapam scam that has rocked not just the Madhya Pradesh Government headed by Shivraj Singh Chouhan but the Narendra Modi Government at the Centre and the entire BJP leadership at the national level as well. On July 7 the headline of the daily‘s editorial read: “Chouhan’s Shame: Vyapam is becoming BJP’s equivalent of 2G scam, Centre must intervene for a serious investigation”. (…)

• The Greeks Have Spoken: What Happens Next?

  11 July 2015

  by Kavaljit Singh
  The Greek citizens have delivered a resounding ‘No’ to bailout conditions demanded by creditors in a referendum held on Sunday, July 5. The referendum was announced by Greece’s Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, on June 27 after bailout talks with the creditors failed. The referendum asked voters to decide “whether to accept the outline of the agreement submitted by the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund at the Eurogroup of (…)

• Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis: A True Bharat Ratna

  11 July 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  June 29, 2015 marked the 122nd birth anniversary of Prof Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis. On this occasion we reproduce the following piece by N.C. that appeared at the time of Mahalanobis’ birth centenary in 1993. This is particularly important now that the Narandra Modi dispensation has decided to completely devalue and destroy the Planning Commission which was painstakingly built during the days of the Nehru-Mahaalanobis model of development that charted out the path (…)

• Aftermath of 1965 War

  11 July 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  The war between India and Pakistan in 1965 is 50 years old. Even today, hostilities are attributed to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the then Foreign Minister of Pakistan. This is correct. General Mohammad Ayub Khan, who was heading Pakistan at that time, admitted in an interview that he did not want to disturb the peace, however uneasy.
  When I checked with Bhutto, he did not deny his role. In his defence he said he felt that if there was a time when Pakistan could defeat India, it was then. He (…)