Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• India’s Stout Resistance to the TFA

  2 August 2014

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  While UP continues to be rocked by communal riots, the latest one being at Saharanpur after Moradabad, not to speak of Muzaffarnagar (where incessant communal bloodletting culminated in the inevitable rise of the RSS-led BJP under the steward-ship of Narendra Modi), and Hindutvavadis feverishly seek to saffronise education, something new has happened lately.
  India under the Modi dispensation has taken a firm stand at the General Council meeting of the World Trade (…)

• Devils’ Dance on the Malaysian Plane Tragedy

  2 August 2014, by Arun Mohanty

  It is interesting to watch that after a week of full-blown Russia-bashing following the Malaysian Boeing crash in Donbas sky that took 298 innocent lives, there is an intriguing lull in the international media in its campaign to malign Kremlin for the tragedy. There were irresponsible and unfounded accusations by the US, Ukraine and international media that made Russia directly responsible and then targeted the pro-Russian rebels in the east of Ukraine for the Malaysian Boeing crash that (…)

• Bouquets and Brickbats for BRICS

  2 August 2014, by Uttam Sen

  There is both jubilation and restraint in the air that after the financial crises in the global, particularly Western, financial system, a practical manifestation of alternative, arguably supple-mentary, agencies has emerged in the form of the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) set up by the BRICS countries at their sixth annual summit in Fortaleza, Brazil. The exhilaration could be integral to the materialisation of an idea that has been on the anvil for (…)

• BRICS — End of Western Dominance of the Global Financial and Economic Order

  2 August 2014

  by Shyam Saran
  The sixth BRICS Summit, which has just ended in Brazil, marks the transition of a grouping based hitherto on shared concerns to one based on shared interests.
  Since the inception of BRICS (bringing together Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in 2009, it has been seen as a mainly flag-waving exercise by a group of influential emerging economies, with little in terms of convergent interest other than signalling their strong dissatisfaction over persistent Western (…)

• Interdependence Among Brics Nations

  2 August 2014

  by Asif Nazar
  The world is as vulnerable to liquidity shocks as it was earlier. There is no foreseeable escape at present. But a grouping of nations based upon strength and conviction is the need of hour. These groups may or may not be as cohesive as groups formed by the developed nations but could be as determined and professional as groups representing developed economics. The will-power and determination of such groups may act as shields during crises. BRICS is one such group, though (…)

• Colonial Hangover, Hindutva, Police Reforms

  2 August 2014, by Kuldip Nayar

  Imagine renowned poet Rabindranath Tagore seeking admission to the Calcutta Club, a preserve of the British, and getting rejected. Faiz Ahmad Faiz, the legendary Urdu poet, receiving a similar treatment at Lahore’s Punjab Club in Pakistan, and Nazrul Islam at the Dhaka Club. In all these cases, the public outrage would have been difficult to assuage.
  The White rulers saw to it that the leading clubs in a country where they had ruled remained an exclusive place for them and their elitist (…)

• Iraq Crisis and Gujral Government

  2 August 2014, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The following article, which appeared in this journal sixteen years ago, happened to be the last contribution of N.C. in Mainstream. It is being reproduced now due to its relevance in the context of the External Affairs Minister’s latest assertion in Parliament that the Modi Government was following the footsteps of the one headed by I.K. Gujral on West Asia.
  Outgoing Prime Minister Inder Gujral can hardly take the credit for his quietude over the American response (…)

• ICHR — Programme of Action

  2 August 2014, by Badri Raina

  Know that henceforth ICHR shall be known as Indian Council of Historical Reconstruction (not Research). “Research” being a species of subversive activity which “secularists” have engaged in for some six decades to integrate this ancient civilisation with the depraved Christian West, it is time to dump research and undertake reconstruction.
  Please understand that reconstruction does not mean the repair or renovation of monuments and such like, although their renaming, as we shall show, is (…)

• ‘Patriots’ of Our Times!

  2 August 2014, by Subhash Gatade

  India is a land of surprises, say many.
  And how can Bihar, which they say has been witness to a glorious past, be an exception. Of course nobody could have imagined that ‘surprise of surprises’ or (should I call) ‘mother of all surprises’ would be reserved for the Bihar Police. In fact it was one lifetime experience for all of them there where they found how ‘Rs 50,000 can balloon into Rs 1.14 crore’.
  The central character in the yet unfolding drama is Giriraj Singh, an RSS activist (…)

• Journey Of A Dalit Party: Why is the BSP Not Able to Extend beyond UP?

  2 August 2014

  by Sri Ram Pandeya
  The BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) could not win any seat in the just concluded Lok Sabha elections. However, the BSP seems to have retained a lot of its vote-base in UP (Uttar Pradesh) as it polled around 20 per cent of the vote-share (even when the Modi wave had reduced any other factor in the voting pattern as redundant) but could not win any seat due to the communal polarisation in the first-past-the-post system.
  Even when one of the national parties could achieve a (…)