Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Why Syrian Question Matters

  1 October 2013, by M K Bhadrakumar

  Indian diplomacy can look back with satisfaction at the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg. The summit’s declaration echoed India’s concerns over the spillover effects of volatile currency withdrawals on the emerging economies. It recognised the principle of levy of taxes on the “multi-national companies” where they make profits—upholding a principle India espouses. Third, the BRICS, which met on the sidelines of G-20, decided to create a $ 100 billion fighting fund to steady the currency markets (…)

• Now it is Syria

  1 October 2013, by Sukumar Pathak

  After Afghanistan and Iraq it is now Syria’s turn to be devastated by incendiary and high explosive bombs, artillery shells and rockets by the American Army and Air Force.
  Afghanistan was accused of hiding Osama bin Laden; Iraq of having “Weapons of Mass Destruction” (WMDs); Syria is being accused of using chemical weapons in mid-August in a Damascus suburb that killed about 300. The USA was trying to get its planned strike against Syria approved by the Security Council of the UNO. But (…)

• Uphill to Peace

  1 October 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The initial sense of relief at the announcement of the peace initiative in the Gulf has now given way to premonitions because of the US camp’s reluctance to respond. Whatever may be the final outcome of these peace negotiations, this makes a distinct watershed in the protracted Gulf crisis. The terrifying air blitz that was unleashed on January 17 by the US-led coalition forces—particularly by the American and the British—brought death and destruction on a scale (…)

• The Right to Food Programme —
 Some Questions

  1 October 2013

  The National Food Security Programme involves $ 21 billion per year to subsidise grain for about 810 million people. The main cause of malnutrition includes high prices, poor sanitation. Many people add that 43 per cent of children go hungry as well as many mothers.
  These ideas and remedies demonstrate once more the gap between urban elites—often decision-makers—and villagers, economic and social issues. Already in 1975 the great anthropologist, M.N. Srinivas, was deploring this current. (…)

• The Metamorphosis of Muzaffarnagar

  1 October 2013, by Arup Kumar Sen

  The recent riots in Muzaffarnagar bear testimony to the fact that riots are no longer an urban phenomenon. In the past, riots happened in the cities. But, now they have spread their wings in the countryside as well.1 Moreover, the Muzafffarnagar clashes prove once again that communal violence in our country is engineered mostly by politicians and political parties.2
  The most significant feature of the Muzaffarnagar riots is that they took place between the Jats and Muslims with a toll (…)

• How Spread of Bt Cotton Contaminates the Food Chain

  1 October 2013, by Bharat Dogra

  While hazardous GM technology was allowed to be spread more easily in cotton on the ground that it is a non-food crop, it is clear that when cattle, sheep, goats etc. feed on Bt cotton residues, then health hazards also spread to the entire food-chain.
  According to the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, Hyderabad, “Bt (bacillus thuringiensis) toxin in its natural, non-GM form, when used as an insecticidal spray, behaves differently in the environment than Bt toxin produced in GM plants. (…)

• Fourth Estate, Event Management and the Societal Interlude

  1 October 2013

  by Saket Bihari
  The Media: An Introduction
  The Fourth Estate is a spectacle par excellence that is hewn in the rationale of profit-seeking and rent-seeking and which remains a great deal intertwined with the rationale of the spawning of imageries. If one delves inside the thematic and objective pretext of KEDS (Events Data Research), then researchers are looking forth to the norm of creating and discovering events out of news which is where the real story of the media is. The Fourth (…)

• Democracy in Virtual Media

  1 October 2013

  by Satraajit Palchoudhury
  The twentyfirst century is the century of technology. The emergence of the new media has changed the dimension of media discourse in its totality. This version of the media is more interactive. In fact it will be apt to shower praise on the inventors of the new media. We have already seen the impact of the new media in totalitarian states like Egypt, Tunisia and to a certain extent in Russia where for the very first time Vladimir Putin in his chequred career (…)

• Paid News: An Advertisement of the Globalised Indian Parliament

  1 October 2013

  by Anil Chamadia
  The scourge of ‘paid news’ is not only the manifestation of growing deterioration of the Indian media institution as such. The economic policies pursued as consequent to globalisation have also exposed almost all institutions of parliamentary governance. Diagnosing the malady of ‘paid news’ afflicting the media outlets, a sub-committee of the Press Council of India (PCI) has described it as an expression of prevailing organised corrupt practices in the media world. But (…)

• West Bengal: Amended Jail Law marks Mamata’s Final Betrayal on Political Prisoners

  1 October 2013

  by Biswajit Roy
  Mamata Banerjee completed her about-turn over her pre-poll promise on the release of political prisoners in West Bengal at the fag end of August. Her government has now redefined the term through the passage of the West Bengal Correctional Services (Amendment) Bill 2013 in the State Assembly. It’s a Left Front-era irony that the notorious jails have been rechristened as ‘correctional homes’. The amendment of the WBCS Act of 1992 has not only denied the status of political (…)