Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• The Next Five Years Or More

  23 May 2014, by Mukul Dube

  Narendra Damodardas Modi’s supporters cannot be blamed for using words like “historic” for their hero’s (or their party’s) victory in the 2014 general election. The superlatives used by the media — the most common being “tsunami” — are, of course, a business necessity and may be dismissed as marketing bilge.
  Is the election result a big deal? One view was expressed succinctly by Nirmalangshu Mukherji on FaceBook:
  With just 31 per cent of actual votes (21 per cent of electorates, 14 per (…)

• Know Your NaMo: Dalits in Search of ‘Gujarat Model

  23 May 2014, by Subhash Gatade

  A mere perusal of the newspaper reports focussing on the open hearing made it clear that the NHRC had to bite its words to really convey what it heard from victims and also do a lot of explaining over its claims that ‘..[f]uture of the SC community seems to be fairly good in Gujarat as compared to many other States.”

• The Avalanche and After

  23 May 2014, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  The following pieces, written by N.C. in December 1970 (before the 1971 mid-term poll) and March 1972 (after Indira Gandhi’s resounding success in the State Assembly elections), are being reproduced here to draw the sharp and glaring contrast between the political situations prevailing in the country 41-42 years ago and now when there is a visible Rightist upsurge after Narendra Modi’s extraordinary victory at the hustings [ensuring absolute majority for a non-Congress (…)

• A Tale of Two Promises

  23 May 2014

  by Asif Nazar
  This article, written before the outcome of the just concluded Lok Sabha elections, reached us after the
  results were out. It is being published since its contents have yet to outlive their relevance.
  The great and glorious festival of democracy will conclude very soon. And there will be party-time for a few political parties and exercise of introspection for most of the political parties. Ideology may be the lifeline of any political party. And there is a tolerance-band (…)

• Indian Politics and Left Parties: Bringing Dange Line Back

  23 May 2014

  On Dange’s 23rd death anniversary
  by Pratip Chattopadhyay
  This article has been written on the occasion of S.A. Dange’s 23rd death anniversary on May 22, 2014.
  The verdict of the Lok Sabha elections 2014 reflects the sorry state which the Left political parties across the country have been reduced to (only 11 seats) particularly in their stronghold of West Bengal where the CPI-M has secured the same number of seats (two) as the BJP with the CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc failing to win any (…)

• On Torture and Confinement of G.N. Saibaba

  23 May 2014

  The following is the press release of the Delhi University Community against Police Repression at a press conference on the detention of Dr G.N. Saibaba, who is teaching at Ram Lal Anand College, University of Delhi, at New Delhi’s Press Club of India on May 13, 2014.
  On May 9, 2014 Dr G.N. Saibaba, while returning to his home from Daulat Ram College after examination duty for lunch, was intercepted on the way, blindfolded and taken to Aheri, Maharashtra by the Gadchiroli Police. He was (…)

• A Landslide Victory for BJP

  23 May 2014

  by Sudhanshu Tripathi
  The results of the 16th Lok Sabha elections have clearly shown, perhaps, the rarest of rare democratic phenomenon which was unexpected to even the very wise political pundits who might have relied on the exit polls. Almost all of them were hoping a near likely win for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition with equally possible chances for the Congress-I-led UPA for forming a new government at the Centre. But all these projections have gone awory, clearly (…)

• Washington-Tehran Negotiations: Edging Out America’s Business Rivals from Iran

  23 May 2014, by Benjamin Todd

  With a view to reducing the tension around Tehran’s nuclear programme, the US has lately engaged itself in negotiations with Iran. There has been some progress in these negotiations no doubt, but the West has not yet given indication of any substantial dilution of the sanctions on Iran. What comes out from the attitude of the US and its European allies is that they have unilaterally imposed the sanctions regime not with the primary purpose of limiting Iran’s access to nuclear technologies (…)

• Modi Wins Massive Anti-Congress Mandate

  19 May 2014

  POLITICAL NOTEBOOK
  The verdict is out. It is a decisive victory for Narendra Modi rather than for the BJP or the NDA. The Congress has suffered defeat of a magnitude that its worst opponents could not anticipate. The Left has been all but wiped out. There is no denying the fact that Modi did succeed in creating a groundswell of support for him. The youth believed he was the Messiah who would deliver them from poverty, hunger and joblessness. Whether and if so how far he would be able to (…)

• The Modi Whirlwind

  19 May 2014, by Badri Raina

  we can say what we like, but Narendra Modi took india’s electoral democracy by the scruff of its neck and romped home to victory. Rarely in recent memory has one man set aside so much and so many, including his own party elders and apparatus, forged his own persona and politics, marked out lucrative detractors, or chosen opportune backers, be it in the RSS , the corporates. or the media, and wrapped some consistently inventive and no-holds-barred polemics to keep the package in tantalising (…)