Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Wider Perspective of Left Unity

  14 March 2015, by Bharat Dogra

  In recent times Left parties and organisations have been increasingly pushed towards the margins. In such a situation their potential to create a better world should be protected. All social forces, which have a potential to contribute to a just and secure world, should be helped to overcome their problems so that they can make a creative contribution to a better world.
  The task of Left unity has to be explored in this broad perspective. It should not be based only on narrow objectives (…)

• US - Iran Talks Reaching Ides Of March

  14 March 2015, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The US-Iran negotiations have successfully crossed the boulder that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threw in the way via his outreach to the American lawmakers. The conclusion can be safely drawn after Netanyahu’s speech that neither do the US lawmakers feel emboldened to enact new legislation intended to complicate the US-Iran talks nor is President Barack Obama feeling browbeaten to backtrack on his policy toward Iran.
  Surprisingly, after all the brouhaha in the recent weeks, (…)

• Vigilance: Need of the Hour

  9 March 2015, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  The Finance Minister’s presentation of the Union Budget on the last day of February naturally attracted national attention. However, several other develop-ments have also hogged the headlines of late.
  Serious infighting within the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has led to two founder members of the party, Prashant Bhushan and Yogendra Yadav, being removed from the AAP’s Political Affairs Committee (PAC) by majority vote (11-8) in the party’s National Executive (which has 22 members with (…)

• Union Budget 2015-16: Continuity with the Past Framework

  9 March 2015, by Arun Kumar

  I. Introduction
  The Union Budget 2015-16 is in the same mould as the Budgets in the preceding years. The Finance Minister’s speech announces or mentions a whole host of schemes for different sections of the population. With a projected expenditure of Rs 17.77 lakh crores and a GDP of Rs 141.1 lakh crores, the expenditure is slated to be 12.6 per cent of the GDP. This is no small amount and out of this, a few hundred or a few thousand crores can be given to many popular schemes. Say, for (…)

• Budget and Some Unanswered Questions

  9 March 2015, by Bharat Dogra

  Some aspects of this year’s Union Budget made it different from Budgets of previous years. In previous years it has been customary to compare the new fiscal year’s allocations for various Ministries, sectors and programmes with the allocations made for the previous years.
  The most important aspect of a Budget is (or should be) regarding the impact it makes on the most vulnerable and poor people. In addition, it is also important to see its overall impact on economic well-being and (…)

• On Economic Survey: 2014-2015

  9 March 2015, by Girish Mishra

  Professor Ha-Joon Chang teaches economics at the Cambridge University and has authored a number of books such as Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Studies in Historical Perspective, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism, 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism, etc. The February 18 issue of Frontline has carried a longish interview with him. V. Sridhar of the Frontline asked him: “India is now led by a Right-wing government, led by a party that (…)

• Unpopular Leadership-style Hurts Kerala’s CPI-M. Would BJP Benefit?

  9 March 2015, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Kerala could well become another Bengal for the Communist Party of India-Marxist. The party’s State Secretary, Pinarayi Vijayan, demitted office last week after a 17-year reign. The party lost ground during that period, though the initial years were promising. In the 2004 Lok Sabha election, the first after he had fully settled down to the job, Kerala’s Left Front won 18 of 20 seats. In 2009, with his style of functioning a talking point, the result was four out of 20. In 2014, (…)

• Shastri’s New Torments / Language: Pandora’s Box

  9 March 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The following was the ‘New Delhi Skyline’ written by N.C. fifty years ago on March 2, 1965 and published in Mainstream (March 6, 1965). Even after fifty years the relevance of its contents remains undiminished.
  Shastri’s New Torments • Language: Pandora’s Box
  When the Finance Minister rose to present his Budget before the Lok Sabha on the last working day of February, there was premonition that the ill-starred Cabinet headed by Sri Lal Bhahdur Shastri might be in (…)

• Should PM Visit China?

  9 March 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  Full marks to the arrogance of China! It summons the Indian envoy at Beijing and conveys its displeasure over the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Arunachal Pradesh. The territory is part of India and was never claimed by China till some years ago when it attained the military prowess worth the name.
  Beijing told our ambassador Ashok Kantha that Modi’s visit “undermined China’s territorial sovereignty right and interests”. Not long ago, Beijing had begun stapling visas of the (…)

• Massacres Recoiled in Assam: Adivasis this Time

  9 March 2015

  by Nazimuddin Siddique
  In a series of violence in Assam the latest deadly massacre came in the fateful evening of December 23, 2014 when Bodo militants unleashed their barbarism through the barrels of sophisticated AK series weapons upon the marginalised Adivasi community of the State. The brutality on unarmed villagers was unleashed in Kokrajhar, Chirang, Udalguri and Sonitpur districts of Assam within the span of a few hours. The rampage occurred largely along the northern border of the (…)