Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Illusion and Reality

  28 June 2014, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Today marks one month in office of the Nareindra Modi-led NDA Government at the Centre.
  One of the major reasons for the BJP’s success at the hustings was the effect of the backbreaking economic problems, particularly runaway prices, on the aam aadmi or the common man, the same person who had solidly stood by the UPA not only in 2004 but in 2009 as well. And the Modi Goverment, instead of alleviating the conditions of this person (as the persent PM had promised to do during his (…)

• “A Blow to Progressive Forces Everywhere”

  28 June 2014

  The following is an interview with Qamar Agha, a specialist on West Asian affairs, who spoke to the
  Mainstream editor.
  Ques: What is the genesis of the latest crisis in Iraq?
  I must tell you that the ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) or the ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), whose thrust into Iraq from Syria has caused the latest crisis, is a powerful organisation. It was part of the Al-Qaeda but the ISIS activists refused to accept Al-Zawahiri as their leader and that (…)

• Democratic Rights in India

  28 June 2014, by Mukul Dube

  “ ‘The next government may adopt a muscular and hawkish approach to internal security...,’ said a senior official [of the Ministry of Home Affairs].” (The Hindu, May 20, 2014, page 10) As bureaucrats tend to be overly cautious, the fact that this statement was made should tell us something.
  The catch-phrase “internal security” is a catch-all. It can include anything and everything. It cannot be defined, neither precisely nor even vaguely. The Intelligence Bureau’s report on NGOs and (…)

• Robbing Peter to pay Paul

  28 June 2014, by Badri Raina

  A good number of commentaries have been appearing, some askance at the rapidity with which the new Modi Sarkar is unleashing its corporate agenda.
  It is as though something other than this was expected to happen.
  After all, electoral campaigns are often in the nature of con jobs: robbing votes from Peter to pay hefty sums to Paul.
  In an earlier article (“The Modi Whirlwind”, Mainstream, May 17, 2014) this writer had stipulated four categories of Modi-watchers: those looking to see (…)

• Modi Back to his Agenda

  28 June 2014, by Kuldip Nayar

  When Narendra Modi broke down in Parliament at his party MPs’ meeting while hailing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a pro-Hindu outfit, as his mother, I thought it was an emotional outburst. And I felt assured when he said after becoming India’s Prime Minister that he would take along with him all the 125 crore Indians on the path to development.
  But as the party unfolds its programme, I find that it is only a cover-up of the divisive strategy that the RSS has formulated. Modi projects (…)

• End of Misrule by Coterie: West Bengal in Political Cross-road?

  28 June 2014, by A K Biswas

  Part I
  Caste Matters
  Caste is perhaps comparable only to poison and/or cancer. Both are too dreadful until and unless urgently cured by strong intervention in time. But caste has no antidote. India is the home of caste, ordained by scriptures and preached by venerable sages and saints over ages, poisoning the mind and body of everybody—sufferer or beneficiary—professing Hinduism. A section of Goebblesian publicists and propa-gandists want the lay countrymen to believe that caste is dying (…)

• A Liberal State is a Secular State

  28 June 2014, by Ambrose Pinto

  The way certain forces have expressed their opposition to rational, critical and reflective statements during the elections and thereafter indicate that the spaces for discussion, debate and dissent are on the decline in the State of Karnataka and the country. There are unfort-unately groups affiliated to political parties that use the tactics of terror, intimidation and fear to prevent freedom of thought and expression and thus threaten the evolution of a rational society. Take the example (…)

• Lest We Forget

  28 June 2014

  Thirtynine years ago on June 26, 1975, Emergency was proclaimed throughout the country as the ruling leadership bared its fangs nakedly displaying its dictatorial proclivities. We present here write-ups and poems that bring back the nightmare of those dark days when our freedom was sought to be snatched away and our voice throttled. —Editor

• The Editor’s Notebook in Mainstream, June 28, 1975

  28 June 2014

  The Editor’s Notebook in Mainstream (June 28, 1975) after the promulgation of Emergency and the imposition of press censorship appeared as follows:
  Tagore for Today
  Somewhere in the excitement of National Emergency, the editor has lost his notebook. However, Rabindranath Tagore has, in the abundance of his generosity, lent him his own notebook:
  Freedom from fear is the freedom I claim for you, my Motherland!—fear, the phantom demon, shaped by your own distorted dreams;
  Freedom from (…)

• Does it Matter?

  28 June 2014, by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

  My tablet and my pen, My two cherished treasures Are snatched from me, But does it matter? For I have dipped my fingers In the blood of my heart; My tongue they sealed Bu does it mater? For, I have placed a tongue In every link of chain That fetters me.
  Faiz Ahmed Faiz