Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Recollections of Legendary but Forgotten Freedom Fighters

  6 July 2015, by Sagari Chhabra

  The following are a few excerpts from Sagari Chhabra’s recently released book, In Search of Freedom: Journeys Through India and South-East Asia (Harper-Collins Publishers India).
  Interview of Subhadra Joshi, New Delhi, 1998
  ‘And tell me about your work during the communal riots?’
  ‘During the riots we brought out an appeal that looted things should be returned. We wrote it by hand, saying that whatever happened in the labour area was distressing. To our surprise whatever was stolen was (…)

• A Unique Journey—a Spiritual Voyage and a Quest for Freedom

  6 July 2015

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Amrita Bhalla
  In Search of Freedom: Journeys Through India and South-East Asia by Sagari Chhabra; Harper Collins Publishers India; 2015; pages; (i to x) + 344; Rs 499.
  “We were always there,... But you discovered us.”
  “If it wasn’t for you, Gouridi, my generation and I wouldn’t be walking in a free India!” I responded with a deep sense of gratitude and humility as I acknowledged the privileges of being born free.
  Sagari Chhabra’s In Search of Freedom: Journeys (…)

• Unpardonable Crime of helping a Fugitive Criminal

  6 July 2015

  COMMUNICATION
  External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s contention—that the help that she gave to Lalit Modi to go to Portugal to sign the consent papers of his ailing wife was on humanitarian grounds—does not in any way exonerate her from committing a serious crime of helping a notorious fugitive criminal who is not involved only in cricketing-betting, match-fixing, rigging and money-laundering but in a number of cases. By requesting the Indian origin Labour MP, Keith Vaz, and the British (…)

• Neoliberalism and the Euphoric Diasporics

  6 July 2015

  by Ravindra K. Jain
  Prime Minister Modi’s rousing reception by Indian diasporics in advanced Western countries—the USA, Australia and Canada in particular—has been a constant refrain and cause for celebration in a number of media reports. Given the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Right-wing and corporate-friendly investor policies, has the intelligentsia in India seriously queried the reasons, characteristics, and consequences of this mass euphoria? The phenomenon of globalisation by itself is (…)

• India’s Sincere Friend in Post-Soviet Russia

  6 July 2015, by Arun Mohanty

  TRIBUTE
  Russia lost its great statesman, veteran diplomat and outstanding academic in the demise of Evgeny Maximovich Primakov, Russia’s former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister and one of the most eminent political leaders of the post-Soviet period. Primakov’s death brought down the curtain over an entire epoch in Russian history. Primakov—the journalist, academic, diplomat, political leader, statesman—would be remembered in Russian history mostly as the man who rescued Russia from the (…)

• Towards New (Undeclared) Emergency ?

  29 June 2015, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  It was written in these columns last week that ‘Modigate’ (or more precisely ‘Lalitgate’)—the revelations of the ruling party’s bigwigs’ deep connections with the fugitive evading questioning by the Enforcement Directorate, Lalit Modi—had exposed the rampant corruption within the BJP-led Narendra Modi Government. The past one week has only magnified the scale of such connections while highlighting the magnitude of corruption.
  The latest disclosures have exposed Rajasthan CM (…)

• (Lalit) Modi’s India resembles an Animal Farm

  29 June 2015, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The “Modigate” is sure enough producing a lot of political heat, but not enough light is thrown into the scam. But then, no one is demanding an inquiry into the whole episode.
  Some sections of the political class do not even want to hear about the scam. So strong is apparently their personal loyalty to Lalit Modi, which, clearly, makes him out to be one of the most powerful men in modern India.
  Succinctly put, what we have here is an extraordinary level of personal interest that External (…)

• The Empire Peddles Back

  29 June 2015, by Badri Raina

  When you came Bible-peddling, I was not numero uno; Now that I am, take back with Interest wages for that meddling, As a hundred and seventy nations Back my awesome, acrobatic show.
  Watch the thrusting of my leg, Chest inflated, arms akimbo, Fire in my eye, beard aflame, Heart raging with dream Of conquest, mind intent on Weeding out all such element That questions my abhiyan, Kicking up an anti-national row. Espy these legions of health, Backed by bushel-fulls of wealth, Retreat, and (…)

• Mohan Kumaramangalam — Cameos: An Old Comrade

  29 June 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  On May 31 this year it was the fortysecond death anniversary of Mohan Kumaramangalam. On N.C.’s seventeenth death anniversary (June 27, 2015) we reproduce the following tribute that the founder of this journal penned under the pseudonym ‘An Old Comrade’. M.K. and N.C. were indeed close comrades since their days in England in the 1930s and the friendship bloomed during their collective struggle in the communist movement; it was retained in subsequent years and even when (…)

• BJP’s Dangerous Politics

  29 June 2015

  One of my earliest reporting experiences was the great Calcutta killing of 1946. Fierce communal passions were unleashed and thousands were done to death on both sides in the course of a couple of days. But behind that gory carnage was the fight for the city of Calcutta: who should get it? Pakistan or India? Religious beliefs are made use of to rouse mass anger among innocent people, but those who whip up such passions do so only for political gains.
  In our immediate context, this comes (…)