Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The Rafale Deal: Was there an Alternative?

  9 May 2015, by Barun Das Gupta

  COMMUNICATION
  Two critical comments on the recently-concluded Indo-French deal on Rafale MMRCA have been carried by the Mainstream (April 18, 2015). One critic has said that the Rafale was designed in 1986 and given the fact that the induction of these aircraft in the IAF will take another ten years’ time, India will be acquiring 40-year old technology at a high price. There is nothing new and surprising about it. The West (the European countries and the United States) has never sold (…)

• How Far Can the Air Force’s Biases Go?

  9 May 2015, by Ashok Parthasarathi

  In the recent past, there have been several developments reflecting the title of this article. The first is the government‘s very close-to-formal decision-taking on a modern single piston engine aircraft for the induction training of the IAF’s rookee pilots. The HAL’s offer of the HTT-40 aircraft to meet approximately 70 of the IAF’s approved approximately 180 such basic trainers with the bulk of some 130 PC-7 Mark II being bought outright from the Swiss company Pilatus. Going in for the (…)

• Death of a Free Thinker

  9 May 2015

  by Nirupam Hazra
  Every year, 21st February is observed as the International Mother Tongue Day since 2000. The historic significance of the day is intricately associated with the liberation movement of Bangladesh. In 1952, the peaceful demonstration of university students demanding, among other things, recognition of Bengali as one of the national languages in erstwhile East Pakistan was violently crushed. Literally it was, in many ways, the beginning of a struggle for free-speech, (…)

• War Poems

  9 May 2015

  May 9, 2015 marks the seventieth anniversary of Victory over Fascism in the Second World War. On this occasion we carry poems by Russian poets who, like all other citizans of their country, actively participated in the struggle to rid the world of the fascist menace and bore the real brunt of that War.
  These times of ours are rather hard upon the pen.
  Vladimir Mayakovsky
  You’ll hear the ring of metal in my voice.
  Direct and heavy into life I came.
  Not all will die, nor all be (…)

• The River of History

  9 May 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  This week all the world over is being celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the victory over fascism. For, this was the week, thirty years ago, when the Hitler war-machine was smashed and the Soviet soldiers hoisted the Red Flag over the war-ravaged Reichstag building in Berlin.
  This was a great turning point in the history of humanity. For, it saw the end of an order in which an exploitative power could conquer countries and enslave nations. Hitler was the last of (…)

• A Savage Civilisation

  9 May 2015

  May 9 this year marks not only the seventieth anniversary of Victory over Fascism but also the one hundred and fiftyfourth birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore. As our homage of Gurudev on this occasion we are reproducing this letter written by him to Amiya Chakravarty from Gauripur Bhavan, Kalimpong on June 20, 1940. —Editor
  by Rabindranath Tagore
  A few centuries back European civilisation had suddenly started to hatch a large brood of vaishyar1children. Eager for profit these (…)

• Report from Ajmer District: Struggle of Kishangarh Farmers Exposes Glaring Injustice in Land Acquisition

  9 May 2015, by Bharat Dogra

  So many senior politicians have been saying time and again that as far as possible efforts will be made to avoide acquiring fertile and irrigated farmland. Even the Prime Minister has said that fertile and irrigated farmland should be acquired only as a last resort. Several political leaders have also said that land acquisition will be done honestly and with transparency, ensuring justice to farmers and providing enough opportunity to them to assert their demands.
  However, all these have (…)

• Salman, Vishwas, Gadkari, Badals

  9 May 2015, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  With Salman Khan convicted under culpable homicide in the 2002 hit-and-run case, the coming days will lie fitted with news reports and endless discussions focusing on him and what lies ahead... for him, for his clan, for his films and fans. The build-up had begun last week itself, with news channels churning out hurriedly gathered details to him, his hold in Bollywood... Just about slight disruption last evening, with the spotlight changing gear, on the AAP’s Kumar Vishwas, and (…)

• NGOs and Agrarian Crises

  9 May 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  It is unfortunate that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is harassing and hounding the NGOs. Probably, the party’s leaders do not realise that many of its members were once themselves NGOs. When the Jana Sangh merged into the Janata Party after successfully resisting the authoritarian rule of Mrs Indira Gandhi, they were part of the struggle to uphold human rights, which the then ruling Congress Party had trampled upon mercilessly. How can those very people be anti-NGO now?
  Accounts of (…)

• Unravelling the Nuances of Ghani’s India Visit

  9 May 2015

  by Raj Kumar Sharma
  The Context
  Afghanistan is in a state of security and economic transition, as the US-NATO forces have begun their withdrawal from the country in 2014. The President of Afghanistan, Dr Ashraf Ghani, paid his first visit to India on April 27-29, 2015, seven months after being elected as the President of the war-torn country and having already visited China, the US, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. New governments assumed office in both India and Afghanistan in 2014 and (…)