Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Crony Capitalism and its Implications

  23 February 2015, by Girish Mishra

  The AAP says it is only against ‘crony capitalism’ and not against capitalism as such. The following article attempts to clarify the term ‘crony capitalism’.
  In Western Uttar Pradesh, the then SP-led State Government had allotted agricultural land, acquired from peasants on very low rates, to industrialist Anil Ambani for building power plants and setting up a special economic zone some time ago. This led to great discontent among local peasantry. Till then, the State Government never (…)

• The Giant is Awake / Allround Decadence and Ray of Hope

  23 February 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The following pieces, written by N.C. in December 1970 and September 1994, are being reproduced here against the backdrop of the Aam Aadmi Party’s resounding victory in the Delhi Assembly elections.

• AAP Politics: Paradigm Change in Indian Politics

  23 February 2015

  by Saumitra Mohan
  With the mainstream national political parties losing to a greenhorn Aam Admi Party (AAP), a political coup d’état has been witnessed in the just-concluded Delhi Assembly elections. The AAP has actually overshot its own expectations by bagging as many as 67 seats in a 70-member Legislative Assembly. Many established, mainstream political parties were decimated in the process. It was a fictional David versus Goliath battle where the former always wins the day owing to the (…)

• AAP and the New Language of Politics

  23 February 2015, by Arup Kumar Sen

  The landslide victory of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Delhi Assembly elections, winning 67 out of 70 seats, signifies a unique event in the political history of India. The most significant implication of this victory is the challenge it poses to the Modi-Amit Shah brand of politics. In a sense, the AAP victory symbolizes rebirth of the “Congress System” in India (conceptualised by late Rajni Kothari), with the party as a grand umbrella coalition of multiple interests. In fact, the AAP (…)

• Is India Finally Changing? The Powerless won Power in Delhi. That’s a New Game

  23 February 2015, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  The Indian voter is an astonishing creature. He looks everything that he is not. The men and women in those long, winding queues before polling booths appear docile and innocent, a submissive type who wouldn’t harm an ant. Get closer and examine their faces; they still look like a gentle, easily handled and undemanding lot, a flock of sheep, really. When they come out of the booths, their fingers stained with democracy, their faces are as expressionless as Manmohan Singh’s. (…)

• Rebirth of Aam Aadmi

  23 February 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  It is, indeed, instructive to analyse why the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was decimated at the polls in Delhi. But the more important point to know is how the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has emerged with a bang: 67 seats in a house of 70! The BJP is down to just three from the 32 it had won in the December 2013 Assembly election.
  Who’s the AAP? It is a secular, Left-of-the-Centre party which may become an alternative in the country, replacing the Congress which is languishing. Some time (…)

• Educational Leadership of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad

  23 February 2015

  February 22 this year marks the fiftyseventh death anniversary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the country’s first Minister of Education. On this occasion we are publishing the following article which was sent to us quite sometime ago.
  by Mohammad Anzar Alam
  Maulana Abul Kalam Azad is an icon of Indian Politics as well as Urdu literature. He is popularly called Azad. He was born in Mecca on November 11, 1888 in a wealthy Islamic family and passed away on February 22, 1958 in Delhi. He was a (…)

• Some Major Issues related to Adivasis

  23 February 2015, by C.H. Hanumantha Rao

  1. Major Issues
  The socio-economic condition of the Adivasis as the most marginalised section of our society has been extensively documented. I do not propose to describe their condition again. I would rather like to straightaway raise three major issues for policy-action and further research: First, the restoration, to the extent possible, and protection of the existing land and other natural resource base of the Adivasis; second, the prospects of raising agricultural productivity which (…)

• NITI Aayog: Much Ado about Nothing

  23 February 2015

  by Rasananda Panda
  It is easy to say that the only thing that is constant is change. But change is never easy. Especially when with the help on an executive order you scrap a sixtyfour-year-old institution that has seen the ups and downs of the Indian economy—called the Planning Commission or Yojana Aayog. It is a different story that the same Aayog was created with a Cabinet note in 1951 to show our commitment towards centralised planning. Thus we get the NITI Aayog—a creation of the (…)

• Ukraine: Will the Second Minsk Summit Succeed in Ending Conflict?

  23 February 2015

  by R.G. GIDADHUBLI
  The fighting between the Ukrainian armed forces and pro-Russian rebels, despite a few skirmishes, largely subsided on Sunday, February 15, giving rise to hopes that the ceasefire agreement, signed on February 11 in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany, might hold.
  The first such agreement was reached in September 2014 in Minsk but this was violated and conflict between the Ukrainian Army and pro-Russian rebels (…)