Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• India’s Open Secrets—Effects on Sovereignty and Democracy

  19 November 2013, by S G Vombatkere

  Junior Strategic Partner
  American spying challenges comprise three categories, namely, friends, enemies and problems. The top two challenges are Brazil and Egypt. That India is No. 3 challenge to U.S intelligence [Ref. 1] is strange, considering that India’s PM, Dr Manmohan Singh, is known to be submissive to US policies and pressures.
  Perhaps this submissiveness began with the July 2005 India-USA strategic framework signed in Washington, between US President George W. Bush and Dr (…)

• Power is Only a Corollary

  19 November 2013

  by Bishwajit Sen
  This, in my view, is the most revealing self-criticism in recent times to have come from a Communist Party (CPI) which is a part of the Left Front that ruled West Bengal just two years back. The self-criticism comes on the heels of the debacle of the Left Front in the recently held Panchayat elections. It was published in the Ananda Bazar Patrika on 13.09.2013.
  It narrates a strange story, that is, the story of the Left’s servility to the rural bourgeoisie which (…)

• Mars Mission, Modi’s Manoeuvres

  12 November 2013, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  It is yet another feather in the cap of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The successful launch of Mangalayaan—the country’s first probe mission to Mars—made every Indian proud. The ‘blast off’ from the first launch pad in Sriharikota on November 5 afternoon and the subsequent injection by PSLV-C25 of the Mars orbiter spacecraft into an Earth orbit resulted in India’s first Mars mission being pronounced a success. If all goes well and Mangalayaan is able to (…)

• The Institution Called Nikhil

  12 November 2013

  by I.A. Rehman
  To describe and celebrate the life of a person like Nikhil Chakravartty cliché-ridden encomiums obituary writers often rely upon are not needed. His life speaks for itself. That he was not content with understanding the world but also wanted, in Marx’s famous words, to change it is evident from the choices he made for himself.
  Armed with a brilliant academic record at Kolkata’s Presidency College and Merton College at Oxford, he had ample opportunities in India during the (…)

• Knowledge blended with Wisdom

  12 November 2013, by Mubashir Hasan

  Dear Sumit,
  An unfortunate accident is preventing me to attend the gathering in Delhi in honour of your illustrious father and my friend Nikhil Chakravartty. We had become friends in the early nineties when I became active in improving relations between India and Pakistan. I had occasion to visit India four or five times every year. The very next morning of my arrival in Delhi, Nikhil very graciously would be there to visit me at the residence of Syeda Hameed at Jamia.
  We would discuss (…)

• Non-Alignment, Human Rights, New: International Order, Regional Cooperation

  12 November 2013, by Kamal Hossain

  The following is the paper the author presented on November 5 at the last session of the two-day conference held in New Delhi in honour of N.C. on his birth centenary.
  I am privileged to have the opportunity to honour the memory of the late Nikhil Chakravartty, our Nikhilda. I remember him with profound respect and affection ever since we came into close contact during the early years of Bangladesh. His deep commitment to independent Bangladesh, and his wise counsel was invaluable in (…)

• Kolkata Observers N.C.’s Birth Centenary

  12 November 2013

  The birth centenary of Nikhil Chakravartty, the founder editor of Mainstream and the first Chairman of Prasar Bharati, was observed in Kolkata on November 3. Among those who spoke was the nonagenarian Jolly Mohan Kaul, a former secretary of the undivided CPI’s Calcutta District Committee who had worked closely with N.C. during a critical period of the party in the 1948-51 period. He recalled those days when N.C. was given the important task of maintaining contact between the party leaders (…)

• Fond Memories of an Eminent Editor

  12 November 2013, by Bharat Dogra

  One of my fondest memories of early days of free-lance journalism relates to my few but precious meetings with Nikhil Chakravartty, editor of Mainstream. Earlier as a student in Delhi University my teachers introduced me to Mainstream where some of our most recommended readings by top-ranking scholars were first published. So when I turned to free-lance writing as a profession soon after leaving college, possibilities of getting published in Mainstream appeared like a great hounour to me. So (…)

• Vigilance and Corruption—Where Is Governance Headed?

  12 November 2013, by S G Vombatkere

  The Supreme Court has directed the Union and State governments to constitute a Civil Services Board (CSB) to manage transfers, postings, promotions, etc., of civil servants, to insulate the bureaucracy from interference by politicians. This welcome direction is based upon a PIL, which seeks to minimise, if not eliminate, one aspect of political corruption in governance that impinges upon effective delivery of services to the people. In view of the judiciary having to step in to issue a (…)

• Time to Breach the Wall

  12 November 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The last few months have witnessed the deterioration of Indo-Pak relations to the point of almost eye-ball-to-eyeball confrontation. Tempers have been stoked high and the fiercest propaganda bombardment has been going on between two neighbours born out of the same motherland.
  The measure of this high-pitched tension was provided on the one side by the Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s frenzied diatribe against India over the Kashmir issue, and by the (…)