Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Will Modi, Gandhi, Kejriwal Look Up the Map and Note that Crimea is Not Too Far?

  2 April 2014, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  In our obsession with the elections, we’ve lost track of the world. As it happens, the US is “just three steps away from war with Russia”, as an American strategist put it. A Russian commentator put it thus: “Russia is the only country in the world capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash.” Got the picture?
  War won’t—or shall we say, may not—happen. Not because leaders love peace, but because the prospect of being reduced to ash is all too real for more than (…)

• Will Ukrainian Crisis and Economic Sanctions on Russia Lead to Moscow’s Political Isolation?

  2 April 2014

  by R.G. GIDADHUBLI
  The US President, Barak Obama, has demon-strated that he has succeeded along with his West European partners in isolating Russia for annexing Crimea by excluding Vladimir Putin from attending the G-8 meeting on March 25, 2014 held in the Hague which was originally scheduled to be held in Sochi. The West has also warned of political isolation and “significant consequences” for Moscow’s actions in Ukraine and that Russia “has a clear choice to make”. As expected, there was (…)

• Khushwant Singh passes away at 99

  2 April 2014, by Humra Quraishi

  TRIBUTE
  Sardar Khushwant Singh lived life at his own terms. He spoke fearlessly. He wrote along the same strain. No contradictions. Just no hypocrisy, no frills and none of the modern-day complications. Till date he hadn’t got himself a computer and nor a secretary and definitely not a mobile. ”Mere bas ka naheen hai yeh sab... I am happy writing on a note pad...“ And he‘d moaned when one of his friends had got him a mobile. Rejecting modern-day gadgets, keeping to the very basics.
  In (…)

• Polluted Politics

  2 April 2014, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The sensational criminal case that has come up in Bombay focussing on an alleged plot to kill Nusli Wadia and implicating in it an Ambani close to Dhirubhai and some of the underworld mafia, has serious political implications which are being lost sight of in the excitement that the case itself has evoked.
  There is the danger of complacency in treating it as just the facet of a long-standing civil war between two corporate giants, Reliance under the Ambanis, and (…)

• An Open Letter to Prakash Karat

  2 April 2014, by Bharat Dogra

  Respected Prakashji,
  Greetings. We are passing through a critical phase of important decision-making before the crucial general elections this year. As the most prominently placed leader of the biggest Left party with a national-level presence, your role is very important in these times and people look up to you and your colleagues to make decisions which are carefully chosen to bring the most benefits, short-term and long-term, to the toiling masses of India.
  You and your colleagues (…)

• Fun Times in India

  2 April 2014, by Badri Raina

  MUSINGS
  These are fun times in the world’s largest democracy. As General Elections approach, doctrainaire distinctions between politics and sport are finally crumbling. Purchase and sale, purchase and sale—that is the presiding mantra; if cricketers are being bought and sold among contenders in the money-spinning Indian Premier League, so are professional political practitioners. In either arena, the object is to cut the best deals available mutually as between the individual and the team, (…)

• Elections and Wider Social Change

  2 April 2014, by Bharat Dogra

  Amidst the chaos and festivity of India’s multi-party colourful election campaign, it is not easy for saner voices of broad-based social change to be heard. If the print media has hardly any space for it, the electronic media has even less. Nevertheless efforts should be made at the time of general elections to link these with wider changes so badly needed in our society to reduce many-sided distress as well as to create longer-term conditions for sustainable, stable and inclusive (…)

• Culture of Political Vendetta overtakes Cultural Vibrancy of West Bengal

  2 April 2014

  by Rajeshwar Mishra
  The Background
  I am quickly bogged down by the mathematical modelling and theoretical complexities explain-ing human behaviour pertaining to society, economy, politics and culture. When, therefore, somebody is able to explain, in non-jargonised fashion, complex social phenomenon I feel encouraged to engage myself. It is in this context that I appreciate Prof Sunil Ray’s article on the culture of political vendetta in West Bengal as published in Mainstream. (‘Who Gains (…)

• Chhattisgarh Incident Exposes Activists on Police Reforms Front

  2 April 2014

  by B.K. Manish
  The recent ambush attack in which 16 CRPF jawans lost their lives in the Tongpal area of Chhattishgarh has generated considerable amount of comment from pen-pushers of various orientations in the front and op-ed pages of leading dailies. What has not been focused on is how it exposes the human rights activists in particular and the civil society in general on the police reforms front. A leading economic and political journal wondered in an editorial piece in September 2013 (…)

• Sustainable Energy for Sustainable Human Development : An Overview

  2 April 2014, by V Mathew Kurian

  I. Introduction
  Sustainable energy may be perceived as the engine of sustainable human development. Though the idea of ‘development’ in the immediate post-World War era, was conceived as ‘economic development’, in due course of time it has evolved as ‘human development’. Of late, sustainability is blended with human development for its ecological significance. Development also has to be just; so it needs to be inclusive. Sustainable energy is critically important in the realisation of all (…)