Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Five-Star Activism, too, is Democracy. Deny it, and we face New Totalitarianism

  17 April 2015, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Forget the beef ban and the Good Friday controversy in the Supreme Court. More important is the fact that we seem to have reached a stage where we cannot debate issues like water and air pollution, forests and wild life, the death of rivers and the enormity of pesticide abuse that is killing citizens in tens of thousands. We cannot discuss them because discussion means criticism as well—and we have a new India where criticism is considered “anti-development”.
  Which Indian in (…)

• Modi’s “Flyaway” French Deal

  17 April 2015, by M K Bhadrakumar

  If Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi were alive, we could have asked him how the French get around authoritarian rulers and tin-pot dictators from the developing countries who carry fat cheque books in their pockets while travelling abroad. As the dreamy picture in The Hindu newspaper immortalises the moment for historians of Indian diplomacy, the French leadership went the whole hog to make Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit memorable.
  The entire leadership—President, Prime Minister, Foreign (…)

• On Rafale’s Induction into the IAF

  17 April 2015

  by Hamid Habibullah
  Egypt’s procurement of the muilti-role combat aircraft Rafale from the Dassault Aviation of France had been actually financed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which have been known for long to be Egypt’s sponsors in West Asia. With the recent payments made by the Saudis for French weapons supplied to Lebanon and Egypt, Riyadh has sought to kill two birds with one stone: It strengthens the Saudi influence on regional players while getting an opportunity to make an impact on (…)

• Honouring Ambedkar

  17 April 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  April 14 this year marked the 124th birth anniversary of Dr Babasaheb Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. On this occasion we are reproducing the following piece by N.C. to offer our sincere homage to the abiding memory of that towering personality.
  The award of the Bharat Ratna posthumously on B.R. Ambedkar raises mixed feelings. No doubt Ambedkar was one of the stalwarts of modern India; the high-water mark of his career was that he contributed most to the drafting of the (…)

• Ambedkar and Constituent Assembly

  17 April 2015

  by Vivek Kumar Srivastava
  We can look at Bhimrao Ambedkar in many ways. He is credited with the drafting of our Constitution. He is respected as the champion of the Dalit cause. He is remembered for incorporating Article 17 in the chapter of Fundamental Rights, which abolished untouch-ability. These are the attainments and contri-butions of Ambedkar but he is more than all that.
  Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru presented the Objective Resolution on December 13, 1946 in the Constituent Assembly. (…)

• Ambedkar and the Annihilation of Caste

  17 April 2015

  by Sukumaran C. V.
  “There is no code of laws more infamous regarding social rights than the Laws of Manu. Any instance from anywhere of social injustice must pale before it. Why have the masses of people tolerated the social evils to which they have been subjected? There have been social revolutions in other countries of the world. Why have there not been social revolutions in India is a question which has incessantly troubled me. There is only one answer and it is that the lower classes (…)

• Pakistan far from Losing Relevance

  17 April 2015, by Apratim Mukarji

  While Pakistan may appear to be losing its relevance to India in some Indians’ perception, it is in fact strengthening its geo-strategic relevance in the fast-changing Asian geopolitics. There is every reason to believe that the Indian Government is fully seized of Pakistan’s fast-growing importance in this context.
  Ever since the two countries came to exist, Pakistan was clear in its perception that while it was no match to rival India, it must adopt policies to befriend powerful third (…)

• Unprecedented Challenges Strengthen Case For Equality and Environment Protection

  17 April 2015, by Bharat Dogra

  I - Introduction
  The next two decades (2015-2035) present some unprecedented challenges for the human civilisation. There is clearly a very urgent need for restricting climate change to tolerable levels, checking environmental ruin in other critical areas as also for restraints on accumulation and possible use of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). In fact this agenda should have been accomplished in the past two decades (1995-2014) as the extreme urgency of these issues had become clear (…)

• From ‘pile of shit’, discovery of breathtaking contradictions: Gunter Grass, the Voice of a Generation

  17 April 2015

  TRIBUTE
  by Subhoranjan Dasgupta
  Gunter Grass, the German author and social critic who gave voice to the generation that came of age during the horrors of the Nazi era, died on Monday (April 13) morning. He was 87.
  A friend of Gunter Grass, who interviewed the Nobel Prize winner several times, recalls and analyses the German author’ s association with Calcutta.
  The question that is haunting me even after his death is basic in nature and, at the same time, essentially simple: did he (…)

• The Answer is Blowing in the Wind

  17 April 2015, by Badri Raina

  This is the day that India’s greatest modern-day social thinker was born. Aided by a fratern-ity of able and well-meaning compatriots, he gave us Constitutional Democracy, and a vision of how much rot needed to be sorted out if our political freedom was to translate into genuine equality.
  The struggles for that equality have seen many ups and downs. Clearly, at the point of writing, the downs overwhelm even those whose commitment and energy on hehalf of equity and justice remain firm and (…)