Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Bharti in NHRC net: Some Facts Beyond

  20 April 2014

  by Mahaswetha Dass
  The concern over the lack of a legal mechanism for the protection of refugees and stateless persons in the South Asian region had been a topic of concern for many working for the protection of their human rights. In the urban scenario, the lack of proper health care system, sanitation, housing, education and the right to work makes it a day-to-day struggle process for these vagabonds. Xenophobia and racism are often an underlying threat and the situation isn’t much (…)

• Ukraine: Threat to Europe’s Energy Security

  20 April 2014, by Amitava Mukherjee

  The crisis over Ukraine, by far the gravest one Europe has faced after the end of the Cold War, now opens the prospect of an energy crisis in the continent. Even if military conflicts do not escalate any more, Russia and the United States, the two big powers, may confront each other on the strategic issue of energy supply to Europe. Tensions have been mounting. Already Russia has been suspended from the G-8 group of countries and Barack Obama, the US President, has described Russia as a (…)

• ’Halt Modi!’ — Sane Voice in Darkness

  20 April 2014, by Humra Quraishi

  Halt Modi and his moves! Save this country from destruction, from a complete breakdown! Well, the sane of this country are openly uttering these two-liners. In fact, last evening (April 14) the Varanasi-based historian, Dr Mohammad Arif—he was teaching at the Banaras Hindu University and is now heading the All India Secular Forum—told me that the very basic aim of Varanasi based activists and academics is to halt Modi. “A person like Narendra Modi, who is a permanent source of anxiety and (…)

• Communal Polarisation Scales New Heights

  12 April 2014, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  Election fever has gripped the country.
  Today was the third phase of polling for the 16th Lok Sabha. In this phase, moderate to brisk voting took place in 91 constituencies spread over 11 States (including Delhi) and three Union Territories. The polling was by and large peaceful except some stray incidents.
  Meanwhile the day the first phase of voting began, that is, April 7, the BJP came out with its Election Manifesto. The three contentious issues of the Ram temple at (…)

• Honouring Ambedkar

  12 April 2014, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  April 14 this year marks the 123rd birth anniversary of Dr Babasaheb Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. On this occasion we are reproducing the following piece by N.C. to offer our sincere homage to the abiding memory of that towering personality.
  The award of the Bharat Ratna posthumously on B.R. Ambedkar raises mixed feelings. No doubt Ambedkar was one of the stalwarts of modern India; the high-water mark of his career was that he contributed most to the drafting of the (…)

• Water and Dalit Women

  12 April 2014

  women’s world
  by Nirupam Hazra
  For long, the discourse of women empower-ment and emancipation has generally regarded women as a homogenous, non-hierarchised group; irrespective of the obvious disparity in their social status, economic position, political participation and caste affiliation. Such cons-truction of a woman as a unified homogenous group or entity is based on the male-female gender binary which overlooks the multiple aspects and differences that govern the identity of a (…)

• Gujarat : A Model of ‘Development’?

  12 April 2014, by Kamal Nayan Kabra

  A notable feature of the 2014 elections seems to be, at least on the surface, that development, particularly the inter-State differences in levels of development (and the associated role of governance of the leadership), variously understood and projected with no sharp and clear articulation (about its socio-economic content and sustainability), has been brought centre-stage. Clearly the intention seems to have been to make development the talk of the town (and, of course, villages and tea (…)

• On Writing India’s China War: Some Recollections

  12 April 2014

  by Neville Maxwell
  Following the publication of Kuldip Nayar’s “Neville Maxwell and Brooks’ Report” in Mainstream (March 22, 2014), Maxwell wrote in an e-mail from Australia: “Sumit, I have read Kuldip Nayar’s article with interest and surprise and wish of course to submit a response ASAP. Will you please give me a deadline .... and send me his piece in a form I can print out for reference?” On March 31, it was conveyed to him by the Mainstream editor that his rejoinder would be published (…)

• From the Left Roots

  12 April 2014, by S G Vombatkere

  Preamble
  The two major Left parties, the CPI and CPI-M, speak of a Third Front that is both non-INC and non-BJP, and have sought to join hands with the AIADMK in a pre-poll alliance (since withdrawn as a “mistake”). Any thinking person would find it odd that these major Left parties are trying to forge pre-poll or post-poll alliances with non-Left parties and groups without making any moves towards unity among smaller Left parties and groups and other socialist and progressive forces which (…)

• One Group has Already Lost the Elections: How Leadership Fails the Communists

  12 April 2014, by T J S George

  impressions
  The winners of this election are anybody’s guess. But the losers are known: The Communists. That is a pity because space is lying wide open for an alternative to the conservative Congress of vested interests and the ultra-conservative BJP of militant Hindutva. The Left was best suited to fill that void, but lack of vision and inability to change with the times have made it impossible. Indians, eager to escape from the devil of the Congress and the deep sea of the BJP, clutch at (…)