Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• They Do Not Extremists Are Extremists: Understand the Language of Reason and Peace

  6 March 2013

  by Asghar Ali Engineer
  Recently we read with great pain that the extremists in Pakistan killed several women who were active in administering the polio dose to the children. They think it is an international conspiracy to reduce the population of Muslims in the world as the polio dose makes a person impotent. Some Muslims and Imams of mosques in India too thought likewise and asked Muslims in their Friday sermons not to allow social workers to administer the polio dose to their children. (…)

• Political Profligacy

  6 March 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  After the setback suffered in the June by-election reverses, the Congress-I leadership—that is, in effect, Rajiv Gandhi himself—was expected to take a serious view of the declining prestige, influence and authority of his regime and strive to adopt remedial measures. In the six weeks since the by-election results, the only tangible measure taken has been the reshuffle of the Union Cabinet in which berths were found for some of the Chief Ministers who had to be (…)

• Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Struggle

  6 March 2013, by Kuldip Nayar

  Whenever I see the Dalai Lama either in person or in picture, I feel that here is a man who presides over a receding culture of thousands of years and realises that it has a problematic future. Tibet is the home of this culture, a country which is under China that knows only one culture, that of communism which obliterates everything else.
  The new home of Tibetan culture is straddling Dharamshala, a hilly territory in India. However the Dalai Lama may try, the Tibetan culture he represents (…)

• Tribute: Subrata Sinha - Passionate Defender of Environment

  6 March 2013, by Sankar Ray

  The passing away of Subrata Sinha, the former Deputy Director General of the Geological Survey of India, on January 19 (born 1932), removes from the midst of down-to-earth environmentalists and earth-scientists an exceptional character for, indeed, he was a personality with exceptional scientific wisdom, an equally strong faith in traditional knowledge and its practitioners at the grassroots, and a delightful sense of humour. This singular quality endeared him to activists, devoted to the (…)

• The Amazing Brazenness of Mahinda Rajapaksa

  6 March 2013, by Apratim Mukarji

  The Sri Lankan Government and the inter-national community are gearing up for a major confrontation in Geneva in March over the alleged human rights violations that had occurred in the final stage of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
  March 15 and 20 are expected to be two vital dates for the future of Sri Lanka. On March 15, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) will consider and adopt the final outcome of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Sri (…)

• A Long-term Loss

  6 March 2013

  by Qazi Syed Sajad
  A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation. —James Freeman Clarke, Sermon
  The untimely, tragic and politically surcharged execution of Parliament attack convict Moha-mmad Afzal Guru has genuinely opened the floodgates of viewpoints and speculations. To this writer, it has led to the emergence of a transitional phase in the Indian political system. The larger picture is that the hanging has done a lot of disservice to the country (…)

• Threat to River Ganga and the Life of its Saviour

  6 March 2013, by Madhu Bhaduri

  Since the last two months the attention of the country and the media has focused on the Mahakumbh Mela on the shores of the holy river Ganga. In the meantime the most sincere devotee of the river has silently gone on a hunger strike to draw attention to the betrayal by the state authorities in not keeping their promises and assurances, given from time to time, to keep the river alive and from death at the hands of greedy men in power.
  Professor G.D. Agarwal has been fasting in Amarkantak (…)

• Tribute: Dipankar Chakraborty

  6 March 2013

  by Bishwajit Sen
  He was a democrat to the core of his being. He always gave the “other” voice more importance than his own, even if that meant giving up some of his own preferences. One hardly comes across such a person, in the middle-class milieux, amongst writers, editors or creative persons. It is this which made Dipankar Chakraborty stand apart in a crowd.
  But it does not mean that he faltered while making choices. When the movement against land acquisition erupted in Singur and (…)

• Is Malaysia turning into a Theocratic State?

  6 March 2013, by S.K. Dutta

  Malaysia, a very important country in South-East Asia and a vital member of the ASEAN, is facing a huge turmoil in the last couple of years with the hard-core Islamist fundamentalists hell-bent upon the turning the country into a hard-core Islamist state based on the Shariat with Islam as the state religion. Already there are several provinces in Malaysia which follow the Shariat like Selangor, Penang and others; it is also an accepted reality that Malaysia turned Islamic way back in the (…)

• Present Status of Power Sector in India

  6 March 2013

  by Hiranmoy Roy and Anil Kumar
  The expectations of the power sector from Union Budget 20013-14 must be formed on the basis of its present status. Therefore, an examination of the present status of the power sector is of special importance. The electricity generation capacity in India is the fifth largest in the world. India is also the sixth largest consumer of electricity, and accounts for 3.4 per cent of the global energy consumption. Over the past thirty years, the country’s energy (…)