Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Tribute to R.K. Laxman by Jayaraj Vellur

  16 February 2015

• Regional Parties: New Challenges

  16 February 2015

  by Moitree Bhattacharya
  The politics of regional parties in India is passing through a critical phase in recent times. In this phase, the regional parties are not only losing political influence, they are also facing a threat of electoral decline. In the last few decades these regional parties gradually expanded both politically and electorally, emerged as important actors not only in the States but also in national politics. By improving electoral performance some of them even acquired (…)

• Editorial

  31 January 2015, by SC

  The country has observed its sixtysixth Republic Day across our vast landmass today with the prospect of uncertainty looming large over the national scene.
  Elements which were hitherto in the fringes of our polity, unabashedly espousing majoritarian communalism, have suddenly captured the centre-stage following the Narendra Modi-led BJP’s resounding victory at the hustings eight months ago and are engaged in making all kinds of divisive statements that have caused justifiable concern not (…)

• Obama’s Visit

  31 January 2015

  Commentary
  The second visit of Barack Hussein Obama to this country during his presidency—this time as the first US head of state to attend the Republic Day celebrations at the invitation of PM Narendra Damodardas Modi—has predictably generated a lot of hype that has turned into euphoria following reports in our media of a “remarkable breakthrough’’ in operationalising the Indo-US civil nuclear coopera-tion agreement signed more than six years ago by previous dispensations in both the (…)

• Break the Siege

  31 January 2015, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Once again the nation celebrates the birthday of our Republic, now crossing the fortyfirst milestone of its eventful career, Beyond the rituals of the occcasion, this time has come in the mind of many of the citizens of the Republic serious premonitions about its durability, whether it has the strength to overcome the challenges that beset it. Never before in these fortyone years since the promulgation of the Republic have its foundations been so badly shaken as they (…)

• Netaji on India after Independence

  31 January 2015

  On the occasion of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s 118th birth annivarsary on January 23 this year, we offer our homage to the memory of that indomitable freedom fighter by reproducing excerpts from one of his writings.
  A question which many people ask is as to what will happen when the British are forced to leave India. British propaganda has made many people think that without the British there will be anarchy and chaos in India. These people conveniently forget that British occupation (…)

• Glorious Dust

  31 January 2015

  January 30 this year marks the sixtyseventh anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. To mark the occasion we are reproducing the following editorial that appeared in Pakistan Times (January 31, 1948). This was perhaps the best tribute to Gandhiji after his demise written anywhere in the subcontinent. (The writer was one of Pakistan’s most respected and best journalists, Mazhar Ali Khan.) Reproduction of this editorial is warranted in view of the anti-Pakistan sentiments being whipped (…)

• Legacy of Anti-Communal Struggle: Gandhiji and Nehru

  31 January 2015

  by Mridula Mukherjee
  As we again approach two historic dates of our history, January 26 and January 30, our thoughts go back to those tumultuous years of the birth of the new nation. Independence in August 1947 was accompanied by widespread civil strife and violence culminating in the irreparable loss caused by the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by Nathuram Godse, a votary of HinduRashtra who had been associated with the RSS-Hindu Mahasabha strand of politics, just five months later on (…)

• Resolutions adopted by the 75th Session of Indian History Congress

  31 January 2015

  DOCUMENT
  The following two resolutions were adopted by the 75th Session of the Indian History Congress held at the Academic Staff College, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi last month. These were first passed by the Congress’ Executive Committee on December 29, 2014 and subsequently by the General Body of the IHC on December 30, 2014.
  Resolution 1
  In Defence of Scientific Method in History
  The Indian History Congress throughout its existence has been committed to the cause of (…)

• Tweaking the Republic for a Make-Over

  31 January 2015, by Badri Raina

  Rarely has an Indian Prime Minister had so tough a job to accomplish at the behest of such breakneck anticipations. Two impatiently imperious mandates —seemingly contradictory but headed toward a familiar convergence—press upon the beleaguered Chief Executive: one calls upon him to privatise with dispatch what remains of publicly owned national wealth, so that the rate of growth of corporate profit is catalysed to an Olympic sprint, and, the second nudges him through one sectarian putsch (…)