Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• A Reluctant Civil Servant!

  2 February 2013, by D. Bandyopadhyay

  BOOK REVIEW
  Making Sense of Bihar—An Autobiography of a Civil Servant of Bihar by Shree Shankar Sharan; Abhinav Publications, New Delhi; 2012; pages: 426; Price: Rs 500.
  If one wanted to read the usual stuff generally contained in the autobiography of a civil servant, where “I” dominates the whole write-up, one would miss it in this book. Witty, simple, humble, self-effacing as he was in his real life, Shree Shankar Sharan in this book reveals more of the contemporary social and (…)

• Women Self-Help Groups from Home Courtyard to State Secretariat

  2 February 2013

  by BIJU B.L. and ABHILASH KUMAR K.G.
  Women’s movements in Kerala reflect the value system, demands and methods of agitations of different strands of feminism. Socialist feminism is not dominant in spite of the lofty membership in the women’s wing of the CPI-M. The debates related to third generation feminism and its subversive politics are principally confined to women intellectuals and celebrities. At present, it resembles a powerful intellectual consortium. Its influence in fairly (…)

• Putin’s Visit to India — Advantage Russia

  2 February 2013

  by R.G. GIDADHUBLI
  Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India on December 25, 2012, though very brief, is an evidence of the fact that India is on his priority list to promote his global geopolitical and geo-economic objectives. No doubt Germany on the West and China on the East apart from Kazakhstan in the ‘Near Abroad’, which he has already visited after taking over his third term of presidency in May 2012, are more crucial from Russia’s perspective and interest than India. But (…)

• Pledge Redeemed

  3 January 2013, by SC

  With this Annual Number, this journal enters the fiftyfirst year of its publication. On the occasion of our Golden Jubilee we warmly greet all our readers as well as well-wishers who have stood by us through thick and think.
  Mainstream was born fifty years ago. In its first issue, dated September 1, 1962, the editor’s letter to the reader spelt out the purpose for which the weekly had been launched:
  ....Mainstream owes allegiance to no political party or group. Its loyalty is wholly and (…)

• Thoughts at 25

  3 January 2013, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  As, Mainstream completes fifty years, we reproduce N.C.’s ‘Editor’s Notebook’ that appeared in this journal’s Twentyfifth Annual Special on October 10, 1987 as it brings out the purpose believed the publication of this periodical.
  Thoughts at 25
  Twentyfive years ago, on a September morning, when Mainstream was born, many thought it was too ambitious a venture and were nearly convinced that it would not live beyond a couple of winters. Only after it survived many a (…)

• I.K. Gujral: A Tribute from Bangladesh

  3 January 2013, by Rehman Sobhan

  The author sent a note alongwith the following article to the editor that read: “Gujral’s role was perhaps more appreciated in Bangladesh than it was in his own country which should be recognised, at least by your readers.”
  Inder Kumar Gujral, a former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of India, is no more. In his passing Bangladesh has lost a true friend whose support remained steadfast whether he was holding public office, sitting on the Opposition benches in Parliament or just a (…)

• Islamic Resurgence: A Politico-economic Phenomenon

  3 January 2013, by Syed Shahabuddin

  One hears a lot of Islamic fundamentalism these days and the tone and context make it clear that fundamentalism is being equated with orthodoxy and obscurantism. The established image is that of a Mullah with a gun. Indeed fundamentalism has become a derogatory term, just as two generations ago pan-Islamism had become a dirty word, an emotive term. In course of time, political terminologies change in sartorial fashion. However, the task to explain the happenings in the Muslim world has to be (…)

• Caste, Sex and Crime: Aryavart in the Dark Age?

  3 January 2013, by A K Biswas

  In a brief compass, the following article aims at an indepth focus on the history of female infanticides as we see in some of North Indian States. The materials used are drawn from the archival source of the colonial administration.
  Perhaps many parts of India are unaware of the word, kuri mara, and its connotation. This means persons “who kill their female infants”. In his several writings, Guru Gobind Singh (December 31, 1666-October 21, 1708) severely condemned the kuri maras.1 His (…)

• What is Happening in Kerala?

  3 January 2013, by K Saradamoni

  More than fifty years back people in the newly formed State of Kerala created history by voting to power, through the democratic election process, a Ministry led by the Communist Party. For the first time the hegemony of the Indian National Congress was challenged in the country.
  In the first Lok Sabha, the Communist Party—undivided at that time—was the major Opposition and A.K. Gopalan, from North Malabar which at that time was part of the Madras Presidency, was the Leader of the (…)

• Hands Rise, Sparks Fly: Many Facets of One Billion 
Rising Campaign

  3 January 2013, by Pamela Philipose

  It was the night of March 29, 1978. A young woman in Hyderabad, Rameeza Bee, was subjected to rape by three policemen and her husband beaten to death for resisting them. Public outrage and frenzy brought the city to a halt the following day.
  Rameeza Bee is just one more name in the long, never ending roll-call of survivors of violence against women in India. That egregious assault on her is only one among countless others—many of them unaccounted, unacknow-ledged, unpunished—that women in (…)