Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Disturbing Trends in Governance — Timely Warning by Citizens’ Report

  20 July 2014, by Bharat Dogra

  The latest Citizens’ Report on Governance and Development prepared by the National Social Watch has drawn attention to several disturbing trends. The findings of this report are supported by a wealth of facts and figures.
  Parliament
  To start with, this report informs us—The nine sessions of Parliament during 2010-12 saw the Lok Sabha working for an average of less than four hours of work per day during its 227 sittings in 852 hours, that is, less than two-thirds of the scheduled six (…)

• Ukraine Crisis Continues

  20 July 2014, by Arun Mohanty

  The Ukrainian Government has been contin-uing punitive military operations in the rebellious south-east of the country for more than two months, and did not go for extending the ceasefire date in spite of the call by leaders of Germany, France and Russia. The initial talks in participation with former Ukrainian Presi-dent Leonid Kuchma, representing official Kiev, and well-known Ukrainian public figure Victor Medvedchuk, the leader of the “Ukrainian Choice“, representing the rebel side, were (…)

• Left Parties: Pragmatic or Dogmatic?

  20 July 2014

  This article was written before the final outcome of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
  by Ajay Gudavarthy
  In 2004 when UPA-I came into existence, the Left parties played a pivotal role in deciding the content of the Common Minimum Programme and pushing social welfare policies at the height of economic reforms. In fact, it was because of this continuous check of the Left Front with their outside support to the government that the Congress promulgated the much acclaimed MGNREGA that literally (…)

• Bombing of Gaza, Bengal Famine, Zohra Segal

  20 July 2014, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  First things first. I can’t believe that we, human beings of this world, continue to sit like mute spectators as Israel continues pounding and bombing Gaza, killing hundreds of Palestinians. Not to overlook those thousands who are left homeless and penniless, wounded and orphaned.
  What about the United Nations and the connected international peace outfits! Weak and rather redundant they seem. No apparent outrage and no halting of the ongoing blatant killings of hapless (…)

• Sack him Immediately

  20 July 2014

  COMMUNICATION
  I am extremely disturbed that one Y. Sudershan Rao, who is reported to have extolled the caste system, has been appointed the chief of the ICHR recently. He feels that caste worked well. Indeed it worked well as the caste system with the help of religion could force a quarter of India’s population to a sub-human existence for centuries and even till date. He may be a beneficiary of the system, but he should know that caste is based on inequality and discrimi-nation; breeds (…)

• Corporate-friendly Bureaucracy

  20 July 2014

  COMMUNICATION
  with the BJP in power, it seems that the bureaucracy is becoming more corporate-friendly. It has advised the new Environment, Forests and Climate Change Minister, Prakash Javadekar, to lift the ban on mining in forests and moratorium on new factories in heavily polluted industrial areas. Do the bureaucrats want to accelerate the pace of environmental destruction? How heavier do they want to pollute the already heavily polluted industrial areas? The Minister needs to be (…)

• Need to Support Doon Old Boys’ Campaign for Release / Better Treatment of Kobad Ghandy

  20 July 2014, by Bharat Dogra

  communication
  Kobad Ghandy, a highly learned scholar and a member of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), is at present imprisoned in Tihar jail. From his desolate jail-cell he has contributed several widely appreciated articles which have been published in the Mainstream.
  Kobad Ghandy was educated at the famous Doon School, Dehradun and St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. Some of his former classmates at Doon School have got together to initiate a campaign for the release of Ghandy. (…)

• No Manna will Fall from Heaven

  14 July 2014

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  During his poll campaign Narendra Modi wanted the people to vote for a Congress-mukt Bharat and make him the Prime Minister. In return he promised to bring them manna from heaven. On becoming the Prime Minister, he warned the people to be ready for ‘tough decisions’ which will end the ‘populism’ of the UPA regime. But the Union Budget presented by his Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, in Parliament yesterday came as an anti-climax. There was no manna falling from heaven. (…)

• Union Budget 2014-15: A Quick Overview and Some Questions

  14 July 2014, by Kamal Nayan Kabra

  The Government in India seems to be on the cusp of a watershed in many different dimensions. This seems to be so not simply on account of a new government assuming office but on account of the attempts, fairly loud ones at that, to project a big change and a good degree of shared assumption of something different from what we have become used to in the course of many changes of government we have witnessed so far. Whether the same holds good for the process of governance in its many aspects, (…)

• Analysing Economic Survey 2013-14

  14 July 2014, by Girish Mishra

  Normally, the Economic Survey is presented during February, a few days before the General Budget, but this time it has been brought in the second week of July. Not only this, but there has been a regime change at the Centre that has led to different perceptions of the problems and tasks facing the country. A cursory glance at the Economic Survey2013-14 convinces one that the Modi Government’s perception and the line adopted by it does not differ from what Dr Manmohan Singh’s neo-liberal (…)