Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Terrible Impact of Cold-blooded Massacres

  25 March 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The following lines were written by N.C. fortyone years ago after his first visit to Dacca (as it was than spelled) following the liberation of East Pakistan and emergence of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. These constituted the first of his three-part ‘Dacca Jottings’ in Mainstream (February 1972). These lines bring out the enormity of the crimes committed by the Pak Army in East Pakistan after its crackdown on March 26, 1971 (which is currently observed as Bangladesh’s National Day), and just before its final surrender on December 16, 1971 in particular.

• Political Economy of Fundamentalism in Bangladesh

  24 March 2013

  by ABUL BARKAT
  Abstract: The genesis of Islam reveals the liberal and humanistic origin of Islam in East Bengal. But this liberal-humanistic Islam has turned into “Political Islam” mainly due to three major regressive transformations associated with the emergence of the “religious doctrine-based Pakistan State” (in 1947), failure to punish the ‘war criminals’ (in the 1971 War of Independence), and legitimisation of commu-nalism by replacing ‘secularism’ with “Islam as state religion” in (…)

• What does the War Crimes Trial portend for the Future of Bangladesh?

  24 March 2013

  by SMRUTI S. PATTANAIK
  More than forty years after the independence of Bangladesh, the war crimes trial has assumed newer significance. The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), that was formed in 2009 after four decades of waiting, has now started to deliver its verdict after cross-examining the victims and their family members who suffered at the hands of their countrymen. It is believed that the conclusion of these long pending trials will help the nation advance towards a historic (…)

• Two Poems

  24 March 2013

  The following are two poems which were composed by leading figures in Bangladesh’s literary circles during the struggle for the country’s liberation in 1971. Shaheedulla Quaiser was killed by the anti-liberation forces just before Bangladesh’s independence in December that year. These were translated from the original Bengali by Pritish Nandy and included in a booklet published by Perspective Publications in June 1971.
  Mother
  She lived in a lonesome village,
  All day she worked silently (…)

• Italian Behaviour, Return of Terror in J & K

  20 March 2013, by SC

  Late at night on March 11 the Italian Government refused to let the two marines (both Italian nationals)—accused of shooting and killing two Indian fishermen off the coast of Kerala on February 14, 2012 while sailing in the merchant ship Enrica Lexia—return to India. The marines were facing trial in this country for the killing of the fishermen and had been permitted by the Supreme Court of India to leave for their country to vote in the February 22 national elections there but only after (…)

• Demand for High-Level Judicial Probe into Bomb Blast in Odisha’s POSCO Area

  20 March 2013

  The following is a press statement released at a press conference in Bhubaneswar on March 10, 2013.
  A national-level fact-finding team consisting of civil liberties and democratic organisations and individuals visited Gobindapur and Dhinkia villages of Jagatsinghpur district of Odisha on March 9, 2013. The objective of the visit was to assess the situation in the wake of escalated violence since the land acquisition process resumed in the area on February 4, 2013. The stationing of armed (…)

• Ravenshaw University, Odisha: Exploring the Essence of CSR

  20 March 2013

  by Sreekutty Mohandas
  By diluting its major stake in many areas, Privatisation has become a charmed policy of the Indian state, the underlying assumption being that the pace of development cannot be accelerated without giving free hand to private players. A ‘liberal’ approach towards domestic players has given rise to neo-corporate entities in a span of a decade or more. There is no doubt that entrepreneurship needs moral support and legitimate encouragement. But that does not mean public (…)

• AFPSA: Misconceptions and Ground Realities

  20 March 2013, by S G Vombatkere

  Sanjoy Hazarika [Ref. 1] and Walter Fernandes [Ref. 2] bring out the justifiable opposition to the AFSPA felt by people from our North-Eastern States where it was first imposed in 1958. The provocation for both articles is P. Chidambaram (PC, hereinafter) stating on February 6, 2013, at the Institute of Defence Studies, that the govern-ment would like to make the AFSPA “more humanitarian”, but accusing the Army of being an obstacle to that proposal. Also both writers have focussed on rape (…)

• Dimensions of Sri Lanka Crisis

  20 March 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The searing experience of genocidal attack on a whole minority group in neighbouring Sri Lanka has naturally sent shock waves throughout India. It would be wrong and invidious to regard it as a matter of emotional upsetting for the people of Tamil Nadu alone, as some circles bereft of a sense of national integration seem to suggest. In fact, the pre-planned gangsterism in Sri Lanka has spared no pains in turning it into an anti-Indian fury: nothing else can explain the (…)

• Patriarchy and the Rise in Sexual Assaults in India: An Explanation

  20 March 2013, by Gilbert Sebastian

  WOMEN’S WORLD
  “We must understand that [they] have committed a crime, but the source of this crime lies in society. It is true that [they] themselves carried out this crime; but a great part of the culpability was transmitted to them by society.” —Mao Zedong1
  For all their silences and misgivings, the unprecedented mass protests in Delhi and elsewhere against the ghastly gang-rape of a 23-year old girl in a Delhi bus on December 16, 2012, has helped awaken social consciousness and (…)