Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Iraq Crisis and Gujral Government

  1 November 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The following article, which appeared in this journal more than fifteen years ago, happened to be the last contribution of N.C. in Mainstream. It was published less than three months before he breathed his last.
  Outgoing Prime Minister Inder Gujral can hardly take the credit for his quietude over the American response to the Iraq crisis.
  The crisis in Iraq this time has not been of the horrendous type witnessed seven years ago. President Bush was very thorough in having the last fling of (…)

• PM’s Productive Talks in Moscow and Beijing

  26 October 2013, by SC

  EDITORIAL
  As the campaign for the State Assembly elections picks up, the prices of essential foodstuffs, notably onions, are registering massive increase in the Capital causing immense hardship to the middle classes, not to speak of those in the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder. This has caused considerable anxiety among the functionaries of the incumbent Delhi Government, and CM Sheila Dikshit in particular, for it would adversely affect the Congress’ poll prospects in the Capital (…)

• Indo-Russian Strategic Partnership Reaches New Heights

  26 October 2013, by Arun Mohanty

  There is every reason to believe that the just-concluded high-level meeting between India and Russia is one of the most successful and productive summits in recent years. This is the first time in many years that the annual summit is not dogged by serious irritants in bilateral relationship like delays and cost escalations of Russian military hardware planned to be supplied to India. Issues like delay in the supply of the aircraft career, Admiral Gorshkov, its price hike and problems (…)

• Mohan Dharia: Selfless Political Life of a Value-based Personality

  26 October 2013

  TRIBUTE
  by Vivek Kumar Srivastava
  Mohan Dharia represented a rare breed of politicians who were not only selfless but expanded their field of activity from politics to social and allied subjects. He not only held important positions in the political world but also went to establish many of those institutions which with the passage of time highlighted such issues that confront human civilisation today as environmental degradation and decline of village life and infrastructure.
  He (…)

• Prospects of Next Polls

  26 October 2013, by Kuldip Nayar

  Pollsters are busy counting straws in the wind to guess which party will form the next government at the Centre. Newspapers and television channels lap up the surveys made because they make a good copy. Astrologers have also jumped into the fray as they have done before every election.
  At stake are the 535 seats in the Lok Sabha, the Lower House of Parliament. The elected candidates will constitute the next five-year-tenure government. One point which is common in all the estimates that (…)

• What Invasion has Shown Up • Need for World Publicity

  26 October 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  October 20 this year marks the fyftyfirst anniversary of the Chinese aggression on India. On this occasion we are carrying N.C.’s ‘New Delhi Skyline’ published in Mainstream seven days after the invasion.
  A fresh appraisal of values has overtaken New Delhi with the shock of the massive Chinese aggression on the far-flung frontier from Ladakh to NEFA.
  In the course of a single week, the nation faced the dangerous implications of a militarily powerful neighbour (…)

• JP: Some Reflections

  26 October 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  On the occasion of Jayaprakash Narayan’s 111th birth anniversary we are carrying the following piece written by N.C. under the pseudonym ‘Analyst’
  by Analyst
  Jayaprakash Narayan has carried with him fulsome tributes from all political circles-his adherents and admirers, his adversaries and detractors. A life of ups and downs of heroic times and despairing moments Living beyond the Psalmist’s assigned span, JP had not only witnessed mighty deeds but participated in them in the company of (…)

• 

  Tribute to Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  26 October 2013

  [(Sailendra Nath Ghosh, 90, one of the country’s earliest environmentalists and a social philosopher, passed away at his residence in New Delhi in the early hours of October 18, 2013. He is survived by his three daughters and grand-children, his wife having predecessed him four years ago. Born on April 19, 2013 in the village of Sapmara in the Diamond Harbour subdivision of what is now the South 24-Parganas district of West Bengal, he had a chequered life. The unjustness of society around (…)

• Tribute to Narendra Sharma

  26 October 2013

  [(Tribute to Narendra Sharma
  Narendra Sharma, the leading labour correspondent of the country, passed away in Delhi on October 20 after a brief illness. He was 90. He is survived by his wife, a son and two daughters. Sharma joined active politics while in college in Lahore and till the last, he worked for the cause of the common masses, especially the working class and the trade union movement. All the senior trade union leaders had personal rapport with him and he familiarised IPA to the (…)

• Amid Warped Priorities and False Gods, the Most Political of all Presidents

  26 October 2013, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  This much is true: but for the media’s competitive derring-do we wouldn’t know how our politicians are plundering the country. But that blessing is accompanied by a curse. The media trivialises half the news and sensatio-nalises the other half. The result is mayhem. People at home mistake the selfish for heroes. People abroad think India is immature when it is not belligerent.
  Issues that impinge on the quality of life and the fortunes of the country get little attention from (…)