Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Juvenile Jingoism is alien to True Patriotism

  13 June 2015, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Last week it was written in these columns that the “clinically executed ambush in Manipur’s Chandel district” on June 4, that killed 20 of our soldiers and injured over a dozen of them, was the “deadliest terror attack on Army personnel in the last 33 years in the region”. Within five days the swift retaliation came from the Indian security forces: early on June 9 special forces (para commandos) of the Indian Army carried out surgical operations deep inside Myanmar inflicting (…)

• Somnath Temple Entry

  13 June 2015, by P.B. Sawant

  The management of the Somnath Temple has issued an order that non-Hindus will have to take its permission to enter the temple premises. The order may be legal under Article 26 of the Constitution, but is ludicrous on the face of it. The fact that the present holder of the office of the Prime Minister is a Trustee of the temple makes it ominous, The reasons given for issuing the order are self-defeating. One reason is that the sanctity of the temple will be polluted, and the other is that the (…)

• Bangladesh: India Rectifies a Policy Deficiency

  13 June 2015, by Apratim Mukarji

  For decades, diplomats in South-East Asia approached New Delhi for forging closer relations with India and were in turn ignored by the latter. Their governments were in turn left wondering why India, the only conceivable counter-weight to China in Asia, was so unwilling to play its due role. That India has since woken up to the reality in South-Eastern Asia is another matter altogether.
  By comparison, Bangladeshis must have been a far more bemused people when considering how they had been (…)

• Meaning of Mujib / Communal Amity in Post-Liberation Bangladesh

  13 June 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Meaning of Mujib
  When Dacca, in the grip of an unprecedented mass upsurge on the triumphant home coming of Bangabandhu, heard lakhs of voices spontaneously calling for “Joi Indira Gandhi”, it was not only an expression of well-deserved personal tribute to the Prime Minister of India for all that she has done for the libertion of Bangladesh and for the freedom of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. It was much more significant: a memorable landmark in India’s contribution towards (…)

• An Avoidable Ambivalence

  13 June 2015

  by Vinay Kaura
  China’s support to India’s quest for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) remains a distant dream. There was no grand gesture from China on India’s bid for a permanent seat in the UNSC during the just-concluded three-day China visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Due to its zero-sum intransigence, Beijing has again shut a window of opportunity to reach out to those in India who harbour deep suspicions, real or perceived, of China’s geopolitical (…)

• Indiscreet President

  13 June 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  Heads of institutions are not generally assailed. The idea behind such thinking is that the criticism may harm the institutions, which are essential for the sustenance of democratic polity. Germane to this idea is the presidency. Therefore, the President is spared even when he or she crosses the line that the office delineates. Because of this consideration, President Pranab Mukherjee has escaped censure even when a person at an equally high office has been crucified. This does not, however, (…)

• Passage to Lahore: A Mughal City

  13 June 2015

  by Chitralekha Zutshi
  I recently spent a week in Lahore. This was my first trip to the city and indeed also to Pakistan. As I crossed over the Wagah border from Amritsar into Lahore, I had no idea what to expect. A few weeks before the crossing, I had attended the flag-lowering ceremony at Wagah, which is usually how Indians usually interact, if at all, with this border. After having experie-nced this overly histrionic nationalist ceremony that included the requisite amount of (…)

• Strategising for Left Resurgence in India: Keeping left is correct, keeping right is wrong

  13 June 2015, by S G Vombatkere

  The sub-title certainly describes the motor traffic road rules, but some may say that it could also speak for ordinary people who are denied their constitutional rights of justice, liberty and equality. We therefore need to state what is meant by “Left” and “Right” in the Indian context.
  “Left” has come to mean the socialist and communist political parties and organisations which adopt ideology according to Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao, etc., interpreted variously. Left-wing political entities (…)

• India’s Fiscal Crisis — Reform Budgetary System to Prevent Insolvency

  13 June 2015, by B P Mathur

  Kautilya, the 4th century BC philosopher- statesman, in his magnum opus Arthashastra, had observed that ‘A King with depleted Treasury eats into the very vitality of the citizens and the country’. The UPA Government, by the time it was thrown out of power, left an empty treasury due to its reckless financial policies, with the economy in shambles. Is the new government, which came to power in May 2014, following a policy of fiscal rectitude, containing unbridled public expenditure and (…)

• Predicaments of Forest-Dwelling Tribes by Dint of the Indian Forest Act

  13 June 2015

  by Suparna Sanyal Mukherjee
  The East India Company, owned by the British monarch, took charge of India in 1760. India was a large field of trade initially and subsequently exploitation. The rich flora and fauna amalgamated with natural resources was a synergy which the shrewd British administrators realised. India is adorned with all kinds of geographical definitions. Being the largest peninsula, it houses mountains, plateaus, estuaries, rivers and forests.
  The Indian forests with their (…)