Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Nation-states and Frontiers: Old Tumours or New Tremors?

  28 September 2014, by Javed Jabbar

  VIEW FROM PAKISTAN
  This article was sent to us by the author for publication some time ago but could not be published earlier. —Editor
  Pakistan completes 67 years as a nation-state while its Armed Forces conduct an unprece-dented campaign to crush the sanctuaries of terrorists who breach the country’s land fron-tiers with impunity. Another country, located 10,000 miles away, uses drones with equal impunity to violate Pakistan’s aerial frontiers. But it does so implicitly, with a (…)

• BJP Cannot Take Voters For Granted

  28 September 2014

  by Harihar Swarup
  What message does the by-elections in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Assam and West Bengal send? One loud and clear message is that the Modi wave is losing its momentum. Coming on the heels of the setback in the Uttarakhand and Bihar by-polls, last week’s by-election results in five States show a steady decline in the BJP’s rating. The Congress won all the three seats in Assembly by-polls in Uttarakhand on July 25. Laloo Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar turned their (…)

• Promising Prospect

  28 September 2014, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The Prime Minister’s visit to China has falsified the wishful forecast of his critics and adversaries at home who had pronounced in advance that it was going to be a non-event. If anything, it has turned out to be an event of positive significance.
  The agreement on the maintenance of peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China border areas has been justly characterised as a “landmark” along the long and tortuous road of India-China (…)

• Lest We Forget: The Batla House Case, Six Years On

  28 September 2014

  The following is the press release by the Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association.
  Ninettenth September marked the sixth anni-versary of the Batla House ‘encounter’. Six years ago, on this day, the Special Cell of the Delhi Police claimed to have hit upon the perpetrators of the serial blasts that had struck the Capital city the previous week. The so-called encounter resulted in the death of Inspector Sharma, a veteran of dozens of encountersand two young men, Atif Ameen and Sajid.
  Sajid (…)

• Shahid Bhagat Singh

  28 September 2014, by Bharat Dogra, Jagmohan Singh, Madhu Dogra

  September 28, 2014 marks the immortal revolutionary martyr Bhagat Singh’s 107th birth anniversary. On this occasion we are publishing the following article on Bhagat Singh and a review of a book on him in the subsequent pages.
  Introduction
  Shahid Bhagat Singh is widely recognised as perhaps the most famous and respected revolutionary of the freedom movement of India. Although he, along with his two comrades Sukhdev and Rajguru, was hanged by the colonial regime at the extremely young age (…)

• Useful, if Controversial, Book on Bhagat Singh, his Life and Times

  28 September 2014, by Barun Das Gupta

  BOOK REVIEW
  Understanding Bhagat Singh by Chaman Lal; Aakar Books, Delhi; pages: xii+258; price: Rs 550.
  Bhagat Singh was a star among the stars in the galaxy of India’s freedom fighters who immolated themselves for the emancipation of the country from the yoke of colonial rule. He was born in 1907 and was executed by the British rulers on March 23, 1931, at the age of 24. So strong was the public reaction to his trial and death sentence that fearing a huge explosion of public anger, the (…)

• How Ukrainian President Poroshenko Won Over the West against Russia

  28 September 2014

  by R.G. Gidadhubli
  During the last one year, Ukraine has been passing through the worst period of its current history, torn as it is between the pro-Western civil society activists and pro-Russian East Ukrainian separatists. For not conceding to sign the association agreement with the European Union, the former Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovich, had to flee the country in February 2014. The present President, Petro Poroshenko, has been facing a tough time during the last few months to (…)

• A Weak Prime Minister

  28 September 2014, by Kuldip Nayar

  “I did my duty” is the defence of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to the charge that he was aware of corruption taking place in the mobile (2G spectrum) and sale of coal mines and did not do anything to stop the corrupt deals going through. That he himself is above board goes without saying but it does not absolve him conniving at open corruption going on under his nose.
  The report by the former Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai is so damaging that the former Prime Minister (…)

• UP By-elections are a Lesson for BJP

  28 September 2014

  by Vivek Kumar Srivastava
  The recent by-elections are a reminder to the BJP that all is not well with it. The honeymoon period being enjoyed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is finally over. The defeats in these by-elections are in a series. From Uttarakhand to Bihar to Uttar Pradesh and other States show that the BJP has failed to maintain the fund of goodwill the people generated during the Lok Sabha elections.
  The by-elections in UP are important as a case study to understand the shift (…)

• Electorate’s Rebuff to Communal Extremism

  22 September 2014, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  The results of the just-concluded State Assembly by-elections have rattled the BJP. Of the 29 seats that went to polls, the BJP won 12, SP eight, Congress seven and others four. But what was most significant, the ruling party at the Centre lost 13 of the 23 seats it held in UP, Rajasthan and Gojarat, the three States (besides Madhya Pradesh and Bihar) which had enabled it to win an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha polls last May. As The Times of India correctly pointed out, it (…)