Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Why Do We Need Parliament?

  10 March 2013

  by M. MANISHA
  The recent debates surrounding parlia-mentary inefficacy raise several important, but unanswered, questions: why don’t MPs participate in parliamentary proceedings on a regular basis? Why do they actively obstruct parliamentary work? Has the inefficiency of Parliament led to the rise of alternative forums of deliberation? If so, what are these and are they capable of building legitimate democratic consensus?
  It is popularly believed that MPs are least interested in (…)

• Japan Under Abe: New Challenges

  10 March 2013, by Rajaram Panda

  Introduction
  Japan went to the polls on December 16, 2012 to elect members to the Lower House of the Diet, the more powerful of the two legislative bodies, and elected Abe Shinzo of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) with a two-thirds majority, thereby ending the three-year honeymoon in power by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which saw three Prime Ministers, all ineffective in their own ways. Abe is the seventh Prime Minister in six years, a record that no democratic country can feel (…)

• Behind the CPI-M’s Victory in Tripura

  10 March 2013

  by SHOUVIK CHANDA
  The CPI-M has returned to power in Tripura with a decisive victory. However, certain facts need to be brought into focus.
  On February 12 at a press conference in Agartala, the CPI-M’s Tripura State Committee Secretary Bijon Dhar had assured that all the demands of the State Government employees would be met once the party came back to power. All the major city newspapers flashed the news on February 13 only to find the State Party Secretary turning (…)

• ‘Balancing Act’ at the Cost of Aam Aadmi?

  6 March 2013, by SC

  Predictably Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s Union Budget 2013-14 has evoked mixed reactions.
  However, if one takes a close look at what the Finance Minister has done, it becomes clear even to the lay observer as to who he has tried to placate. True, he has imposed a 10 per cent surcharge on income tax for crorepatis as also domestic and foreign firms with taxable income above Rs 10 crores, besides increasing exise duty on SUVs, duty on imported automobiles and yachts. He has also (…)

• Union Budget 2013-14: Caught between Various Contradictions

  6 March 2013, by Arun Kumar

  The Union Budget is the largest single economic event of the year for the nation. It sets the direction for the economy for the coming year. Hence it is keenly watched by the public. The Union Budget for 2013-14 projects an expenditure of 14.6 per cent of the GDP for that year, that is, Rs 16,65,297 crores. This is a huge sum of money and as usual the FM doled it out in dribs and drabs to every politically important section of the nation. In the Part A of his speech which presents the (…)

• Economic Survey 2012-13

  6 March 2013, by Girish Mishra

  Every year the Economic Survey of the current year is released just before the Union Budget for the coming year is presented to Parliament in order to make people aware of its background, problems and difficulties, and appreciate the efforts of the government to tackle them. This time it is, to an extent, different from the last Survey in an important sense. It exhibits a great deal of seriousness as compared to the childish-ness seen in the preceding survey. This is simply because the (…)

• NAPM and People’s Budget Initiative’s Stand on Union Budget

  6 March 2013

  DOCUMENT Need for a Progressive Fiscal Policy in India: Need to increase Tax-GDP Ratio Stop favouring the Corporates at the cost of the Toiling Masses Decentralisation and Self-Reliance through Resource Allocation Unorganised Workers: Contribution—65 per cent of GDP, Allocation—0.01 per cent Budget-making with a Bottom-up Approach.
  These demands resonated at a Press Conference organised jointly by National Alliance of People’s Movements and People’s Budget Initiative at Bhopal on February (…)

• Tributes to Lotika Sarkar by Amita Dhanda and V.R. Krishna Iyer

  6 March 2013

  Professor Lotika Sarkar, 91, a widely-known pioneer in the fields of law, women’s studies and human rights, passed away in New Delhi on February 23, 2013. She taught criminal law and conflict of laws at the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi and was an active member of the Indian Law Institute. She was a member of the Government of India‘s Committee on the Status of Women in India and had been a founding member of several institutions—the Indian Association for Women Studies and the Centre for Women‘s Development Studies. Her husband, veteran journalist Chanchal Sarkar, predeceased her more than seven years ago. While remembering her we are publishing a tribute by one of her distinguished students, who is now herself a Professor of Law, and a message we received from Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, the retired Supreme Court judge, mourning her demise.

• Do Champions of Communal Fascism deserve any Tribute?

  6 March 2013

  COMMUNICATION
  Communal fascism is the greatest enemy of Indian democracy as it aims at transforming India into a Hindu Rashtra and establish a Hindu state and is deadly opposed to the distinctive features of Indian national culture—pluralism, unity in diversity, equal rights for all Indian citizens, equal respect for all religions and the rule of law.
  It is, therefore, lamentable that our national leaders including the President of India and Prime Minister had paid tributes—reserved for (…)

• Justice Katju Merits Compliments, Nothing Has Changed In Gujarat

  6 March 2013, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  Hopefully Chairperson of the Press Council of India Justice Markandey Katju’s words come in as a hurdle in Narendra Modi’s march towards New Delhi. Katju spoke out loud and clear, and at an apt and appropriate juncture, when the EU and the rest of the world seemed trying to overlook the ghosts of the Gujarat pogrom. Mind you, with such blatant ease as though all that Modi and his men did was kill mosquitoes or flies precisely eleven years ago! The EU ought to realise that though (…)