Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The Positivity of India-Bangladesh Relations

  16 May 2015, by Apratim Mukarji

  There is a fairly large group of British investors keenly watching the situation in the wake of the Indian Parliament’s passage of the Constitution (119th Amendment) Bill ratifying the India-Bangladesh Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) during May 6-7.
  To them, the road now seems to be opening up for new investment and business opportu-nities over a vast region extending from North-Eastern India through Bangladesh to Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and onwards right down to Vietnam and Indonesia. (…)

• Sri Lanka: Managing Constitutional Change

  16 May 2015, by Mohan K. Tikku

  On April 28, Sri Lanka commenced a process of constituional change that has passed unnoticed by large sections of the media in this country. The significance of the enactment of the 19th Constitution Amendment by the Sri Lankan Parliament on that day lay in that it undid some of the measures taken by former President Mahinda Rajapakse in recent years to make Sri Lanka a more authoritarian state than it already was. Further, the new amendment marked the beginning of a process that, when (…)

• On India’s Participation in SCO Summit at the Highest Level

  16 May 2015

  by Michael Todd
  The next summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is going to be held at Ufa, Russia on July 9-10, 2015. This will take place along with the summit of the BRICS (an acronym standing for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) there.
  The SCO is an intergovernmental inter-national organisation founded in Shanghai, China on June 15, 2001 by six countries—China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its observer states are (…)

• Left Perspective Today

  9 May 2015, by SC

  [Revised and Updated on 20 June 2015]
  EDITORIAL
  By the time these lines come out in print Sitaram Yechury would be completing three weeks in office as the General Secretary of the largest communist formation in the country, the CPI-M. In these three weeks the new CPI-M General Secretary has left his own imprint on the national scene. His emergence as the tallest leader of the CPI-M is a refreshing change from his predecessor, Prakash Karat. The latter, despite his qualifications as a (…)

• Widen the Circle, Broaden the Left

  9 May 2015, by Badri Raina

  The Communist Party of India-Marxist has a new helmsman. Sitaram Yechury, a less forbidding man than his predecessor, carries with him the sunny goodwill of many inside and outside the Party. Many among the general middle classes, who view politics rather exclusively in terms of “leadership”, even those who are more familiar with the structures of Left politics than most, sense some sort of a paradigm shift in the offing with regard to both the substance and the style of the Party’s (…)

• Bengal Local Poll Results Don’t Bode Well for the Bjp, Left

  9 May 2015, by Praful Bidwai

  The Trinamul Congress has pulled off a massive victory in West Bengal’s municipal elections by winning 71 of 92 civic bodies (up from 38 won in 2010). Its Kolkata win was even more crushing: 114 of 144 wards (95 in 2010). The entire Opposition accuses the TMC of rigging the elections—a charge that carries some credibility given the scale of the TMC’s victory, huge winning margins of some candidates (for example, 15,000-30,000 votes), and the party’s known reliance on muscle-power.
  The TMC (…)

• Beginning Once Again — The CPI-M has a New Struggle Ahead

  9 May 2015, by Gopalkrishna Gandhi

  In times when political parties are led by supremos for seemingly endless durations, what a welcome contrast the Communist Party of India-Marxist has provided us!
  Prakash Karat’s being succeeded by Sitaram Yechury as the General Secretary of the party should tell all our parties something about the grace in relinquishing control and the solemnity of assuming responsible office within a democratic system. All formalities were gone through at the party Congress with due decorum and form as (…)

• Aam Adami Party Today — Crisis of Success

  9 May 2015, by Anand Kumar

  Indian democracy is known to spring surprises at most unexpected moments since its inception. From institutionalisation of the multi-party system and parliamentary elections within a largely poor, illiterate and agrarian social setting in the 1960s to the abandoning of an authoritarian regime in mid-1970s, there are a number of striking achievements to the credit of the Indian electorate.
  The twentyfirst century India is credited with one more astonishing milestone in the form of emergence (…)

• Trinamul Sweeps Civic Elections In Bengal: Glory Marred By Violence

  9 May 2015, by Barun Das Gupta

  Municipal elections were held in West Bengal on April 18 and 25. As expected and as predicted by pre-poll surveys, the ruling Trinamul Congress swept the polls, capturing seventy of the ninetytwo civic bodies. Six were captured by the Left, five by the Congress while in twelve no party got a clear majority. The BJP drew a blank, failing to capture a single body. Its vote percentage declined sharply by eight per cent compared to its performance in the Lok Sabha elections last year.
  What is (…)

• Modi Government’s Budget sans Destination and Direction

  9 May 2015

  by A.V.V.S.K. Rao
  “Striving to better, Oft we mar what’s well.” —William Shakespeare
  For a country like India opting for a mid-way path as against the neo-liberal path in the context of globalisation, Budget-making is not an easy task. It requires choosing a new set of objectives, priorities, strategies and resource mobilisation measures.
  On March 1, 2015, when the Budget for 2015-16 was presented in Parliament, laymen got the impression that the Modi Government has come up with a (…)