Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Tribute: Remembering Perin

  31 January 2015

  by Primla Loomba
  The following is a tribute to Perin Chandra (née Bharucha), 96, who passed away in Mumbai on January 7, 2015, from one of her oldest associates since her days in Lahore.
  I have had a long association with Perin. It goes back to the days when I was still an under-graduate student in Kinnaird College, Lahore, Perin was already a well-known Communist leader.
  There is a very vague recollection I have of my first meeting with Perin. It was outside the Regal Cinema after a (…)

• Tribute: Goodbye Comrade! Alvida Mehdi Chacha!

  31 January 2015

  by Noor Zaheer
  What can one write about an uncle who pampered one with hot chocolate and insisted on presenting a book on Marxism with it? What can one say about him who gets you the first proper job, the one that you love doing, and performs a detailed autopsy of all that you write, one who does not fear giving away his contacts and is convinced that Marsiakhwani is a one-man theatre, whose eyes glistened with knowledge through thick spectacles and a warm smile played on his lips as he (…)

• Grim Scenario, Ominous Setting

  27 December 2014, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  As Mainstream steps into its fiftythird year with this Annual Number, the overall domestic situation has never been as grim as it is today.
  Seven months ago the outcome of the 16th Lok Sabha elections resulted in a political earthquake the tremors of which are still being felt even if the intensity of those tremors has lessened with the passage of time. The coming to power at the Centre of the BJP in a decisive mandate with one party securing absolute majority in the Lower (…)

• Gandhi or Godse

  27 December 2014, by Suhas Borker

  The moral compass has no tones of grey It is white or black It is light or darkness It is good or evil It is Gandhi or Godse.
  Suhas Borker
  [Suhas Borker is an independent documentary filmmaker and Convener, Working Group on Alternative Strategies and is based in New Delhi. He can be e-mailed at suhasborker@gmail.com]

• On Haryana CM’s Observations

  27 December 2014

  COMMUNICATION
  Haryana Chief Minister M.L. Khattar has stated [<http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/...> ;India Today; “Khaps have better sense of social justice than courts: Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar”; IndiaToday.in, New Delhi, December 6, 2014] that Khap Panchayats have a better sense of justice than the courts do. He also avers that “It has been scientifically proven that marrying within the gotra is not right”.
  In the first statement, he makes a grave charge against the (…)

• The Subversion of the Constitution

  27 December 2014, by P.B. Sawant

  The Bharatiya Janata Party, though a minority party in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly, being the party having the larger number of legislators in the Assembly than any other party, was called upon by the Governor to form the government in the State, on the condition that it proves that it is supported by a majority in the House within 15 days. The party failed to prove it, according to law, when it attempted to do it on November 12, 2014. Hence, the government should have resigned on (…)

• Face of the New World Order / Human Rights: Basic Issues / Prime Minister’s Predicament

  27 December 2014

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Face of the New World Order
  Turmoil in heaven—the heaven which is presided over by the supreme superpower of the day, possessing History’s largest number of deadly nuclear bombs and missiles, the Cruise to the Patriot, who at the same time lords it over the world’s largest money-lending bank. Yes, in such a country advertised the world over as the ultimate repository of power and affluence—in the mighty United States of America—there has erupted a spate of violence (…)

• To Question Or Not To Question: That Is The Question

  27 December 2014

  The following is a slightly expanded version of the text of the Third Nikhil Chakravartty Memorial Lecture, organised by the Book Review Literary Trust, in New Delhi on October 26, 2014. Prof Romila Thapar has edited and expanded the text. It is being reproduced, with due acknowledgement, from the Book Review. A recorded version of the lecture is available at http://www.sacw.net/article9874.html and at ndtv.com
  by Romila Thapar
  Deciding on a topic for this lecture has been problematic. (…)

• Republic at Crossroads: Who is at the Wheel?

  27 December 2014, by Badri Raina

  I cannot recall if political India has ever before had a more momentously contentious ending to a calendar year.
  I say “political India” advisedly, because much that seems to be now culturally fraught is at bottom purely political in intent. And, with a vengeance it would seem.
  In an earlier article (“Troubled Times for the Constitutiional Republic,” Mainstream, August 30, 2014) I had speculated that consequent upon the victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the general elections, a (…)

• Tragedy And Conciliation

  27 December 2014, by Kuldip Nayar

  There was genuine pain in India over the mindless killing of schoolchildren at Peshawar. Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked all Indian schoolchildren to maintain a two-minute silence in memory of the lives lost in Pakistan. He readily offered any assistance that India could render to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Such gestures transcend the borders. I wish this atmosphere could sustain between the two countries.
  Unfortunately, the civil societies in India and Pakistan don’t feel concerned (…)