Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Rewriting History for Political Gains

  31 January 2015, by Suranjita Ray

  History writing has always been a subject of debate and revision. It is an ongoing process and there can be no final writing of history. However, rewriting history for political gains is what one needs to be concerned. The attempts of political parties across ideological divides to make a certain writing of Indian history as dominant not only reflect their narrow political interests but also obstruct any comprehensive understanding of India’s history. In the context of commemorating the (…)

• Caste Pride

  31 January 2015, by A K Biswas

  On May 20, 2014 Jitanram Manjhi was sworn in as the 23rd Chief Minister of Bihar. On the previous evening, I received a phone call at Calcutta from Minapur Banglatola, a hamlet in Muzaffarpur district, North Bihar. The caller, one Binda Devi, a Musahar woman, informed me: “Apna aadmi will take over as the Chief Minister of Bihar tomorrow.” Referring to Jitanram Manjhi as apna aadmi in Bihar parlance, she was stating that the leader to occupy the top seat belonged to her caste. The excitement (…)

• ‘Rajapaksa’s Defeat is a Progressive Change from the Democratic Standpoint’

  31 January 2015

  In the following interview Varadaraja Perumal, the former Chief Minister of the north and east in Sri Lanka, speaks to the Mainstream editor on the significance of the outcome of the recently held Sri Lankan presidential election.
  How do you view the outcome of the Sri Lankan presidential election?
  VP: On the whole it’s a very progressive change because under Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government the situation was such that the government was ruling with nepotism in a dictatorial way, (…)

• The Great Suicide

  31 January 2015

  The following article was published precisely twentyfive years ago in the Mainstream Republic Day Special (January 27, 1990) after the Congress’ defeat in the 1989 Lok Sabha poll and created a stir in political circles. It is being reproduced in full now when the Congress is facing a much deeper crisis in the wake of its rout in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.
  by Congressman
  The dust of the Lok Sabha election is settling down.... Well, not quite, because the Assembly elections several (…)

• Je ne suis pas Charlie; Sorry, I am not Charlie

  31 January 2015, by Nandita Haksar

  The French President, Francois Hollande, immediately declared that the attack on Charlie Hebdo was an act of terrorism and an assault on freedom of the press. Michael J. Morell, the former deputy director of the CIA and now a consultant to CBS News and topmost national security professional, stated categorically:
  This is the worst terrorist attack in Europe since the attacks in London in July of 2005. The motive here is absolutely clear: trying to shut down a media organisation that (…)

• Long Live Charlie Hebdo!

  31 January 2015, by Harsh Kapoor

  about the January 2015 terror attack on the Paris satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and its gross misinterpretation by people of Left liberal sensibilities in India and much of the world.

• Tribute to B.G. Verghese: A Thorough Gentleman

  31 January 2015, by Kuldip Nayar

  Even after consuming reams and reams of paper, I would fail to describe Boobli George Verghese. Yet one word will suffice to portray him: Gentleman! He was a true Christian in faith and deed. He was a man of values who did his best to stay objective and humane in life as well in profession.
  The first time I met George was more than 50 years ago when he was officiating as the Resident Editor of The Times of India. I was then the Information Officer at the Press Information Bureau, (…)

• Kamath of Dalal Street

  31 January 2015, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  This is a piece the author, himself a reputed columnist, wrote for Mainstream remembering M.V. Kamath, the veteran journalist who passed away a few months ago last year.
  At the dawn of independence Bombay was a vibrant, cosmopolitan, forward-looking universe throbbing with creativity and avant-garde enterprise. Mulk Raj Anand would saunter out of his Marg office in Army and Navy Building even as Raja Rao worked his way to Chetana, the restaurant that blazed a new trail by (…)

• Professor Rajni Kothari: Homage by a Socialist Worker

  31 January 2015

  by Vijay Pratap
  Prof Rajni Kothari, born on August 16, 1928, left this world on January 19, 2015. He was a rare academic person. In the last four decades I have witnessed many stalwarts leaving this world but not seen so many articles having been written in various languages in the mainstream media as well as in the movement space. The articles so far have primarily described him as a political scientist who, in addition to doing path-breaking work for his discipline, also contributed (…)

• Travails of keeping Foreign Cows in Rural India!

  31 January 2015, by Barun Das Gupta

  BOOK REVIEW
  Book Discussion on ‘Inside-Outside: Two Views of Social Change in Rural India’ by Baburao Shravan Baviskar and D.W. Attwood (Discussants: A.M. Shah, Anand Chakravarti, Partha Nath Mukherji, Tulsi Patel); pages: 40; Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi
  This is actually not a book but a booklet containing opinions expressed by several social scientists during an interesting discussion on the above-named book by Baburao Shravan Baviskar, an economist by training but a (…)