Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Ilaiah’s Tilak is Communal to the Core

  28 April 2013

  BOOK REVIEW
  by Poornima Joshi
  Untouchable God by Kancha Ilaiah; Publishers: Samya; pages: 248; Price: Rs 350.
  Kancha Ilaiah is not an easy scholar to digest, with his brutal polemic against the Brahminical dominance of the Indian caste order. His latest assault, appropriately titled Untouchable God, is a progression of the unique line of argument he has forwarded since he burst onto the Indian sociological scene with his seminal work Why I am Not a Hindu: A Sudra Critique of Hindutva (…)

• Boston and Bengaluru, Growing BJP-JD(U) Rift

  22 April 2013, by SC

  Two days after twin blasts near the finish line of the famous Boston marathon shattered the post-9/11 calm in the US killing three persons (including an eight-year-old) and injuring close to 170, 17 of them critically, the powerful explosion of an improvised explosive device (IED) outside the BJP headquarters in Bengaluru’s Malleswaram area at 10.28 am this morning has injured 16 people, among them eight policemen; the IED is reported to have been placed in or around the petrol tank of a (…)

• Who Can Take On Narendra Modi?

  22 April 2013, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  Narendra Modi seems doing nothing much to his semi-parched and drought hit State; in fact, focusing only on giving speeches to a select crowd of New Delhi. Before I write any further, it seemed more than apparent that his hosts double-checked the invite list and made sure that together with the business movers and shakers, only the Right-wing elements or those fence-sitters be invited. No, the outspoken lot of this Capital city was kept far away from Modi and his men. Why? Just in (…)

• American-style Integration in the Asia-Pacific

  22 April 2013, by Benjamin Todd

  According to international economic experts, Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is one of the core issues of Washington’s “Returning to Asia” strategy. However, unlike a number of other economic integration institutions of the Asia-Pacific region, negotiations between the US and prospective BJP member-countries are being conducted in the most vague and secretive manner, without reference to all the “hidden rocks” of the proposed treaty.
  Particularly noteworthy in this context is the letter US (…)

• Remembering October-November 1984

  22 April 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Early next week, on October 31, the country would be observing the tenth death anniversary of Indira Gandhi who had been cruelly shot down on this very day by her own security guards right inside her residence.
  By all accounts it was a ghastly tragedy committ6ed by those who had been embittered by the ‘Operation Bluestar’ at the Golden Temple at Amritsar. The perpetrators of Indira’s assassination owned up the full responsibility for their gory deed which in their (…)

• Thatcher feared Islam

  22 April 2013, by Kuldip Nayar

  I met Mrs Margaret Thatcher for the first time when I was India’s envoy at London in 1990. At that time she was counting on her achievements, including the triumph in the Cold War. I sent her a congratulatory message for having vanquished the communist ideology. But she said she had even bigger enemies to defeat and mentioned Islam. I have always wondered whether the stirrings in the Islamic world were the doing of Great Britain’s.
  Around the same time, I knew that Prime Minister Thatcher (…)

• Constitutional Dilemma and Historical Injustice to Tribals

  22 April 2013

  by B.K. Manish
  Before the Supreme Court goes for its summer break, it faces a huge dilemma. An appeal challenging the order of the Chhattisgarh High Court in a tribal rights matter is coming up for hearing. In March, the HC dismissed on merit a PIL regarding alleged unconstitutional functioning of the Tribes Advisory Council, a crucial part of the Fifth Schedule mechanism. While the HC praised the effort of the petitioner, it, strangely, overturned a progressive line on the Governor’s (…)

• Violence in American Society

  22 April 2013, by Ashok Celly

  In his book, The End of the American Century, David S. Mason draws the reader’s attention to some shcoking facts of American life. “The United States is the most violent country in the industrialised world. According to reports by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in 2004 there were 1,367,009 violent crimes in this country. Of these more than 16,000 were homicides. In that year, there was one violent crime every twentythree seconds and one murder every thirtythree minutes. Much of (…)

• Who Will Be India’s Next PM?

  22 April 2013, by P R Dubhashi

  Who will be India’s PM after the 2014 general elections? This is a question being hotly debated in the print and electronic media. It is taken for granted that the incumbent Prime Minister, who has held the position for two consecutive terms (five years each), will not be the candidate. Two names are being prominently mentioned on behalf of the two major national parties—Rahul Gandhi as the Congress party candidate and Narendra Modi as the BJP candidate. Both the parties have yet to formally (…)

• A Journey to Afzal’s Village in Sopore

  22 April 2013

  This piece was sent sometime ago but could not be used earlier due to unavoidable reasons.
  by Gazala Peer
  When the seven-day siege of Kashmir was over, I decided to pay a visit to Sopore to the family of Afzal Guru who was murdered on February 9, 2013 in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail. As I stepped out there were rimours all around that Afzal Guru’s house is cordoned, his body will be returned anytime and nobody is allowed to visit the greiving family for the past one week since he was killed. I (…)