Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Not the Friends in Need

  1 December 2012

  by JAYA JAITLY
  If India had stood solidly by the forces fighting to restore democracy in Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi may have made this country her first stop when she travelled to receive encomiums around the world. Considering the strong influence of Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings in her life, and her stay here as a student when her mother was Burma’s ambassador to India, it was the obvious first choice. This did not happen, mainly because India shied away from speaking plainly for democracy and (…)

• Fundamentalism and Secularism

  1 December 2012, by P N Haksar

  On November 27 this year falls the fourteenth death anniversary of distinguished administrator P.N. Haksar, one of the country’s foremost thinkers. On this occasion we remember him by reproducing an article he wrote in Man and Development (Vol. XIII, No. 4, December 1991), the journal he edited.
  In the charmed world of Alice in Wonderland, words can be made to mean anything. Regrettably, outside the Wonderland, words have to be used with utmost care. The context in which a word arises must (…)

• Fundamentalism — the Oldest Folly

  1 December 2012

  by A. RASHID
  Dictionaries define a fundamentalist as ‘one who believes in the literal interpretation and the infallibility of the Bible’ as if fundamentalism were unique to Christianity alone. This definition may be modified some day, but, the problem of fundamentalism will continue to torment us. Even the rationalists and the atheists are not free from its evil influence. The literal interpretation of the purpose of life, as suggested by the religious books (pleasing god and striving for (…)

• Is Renaissance Possible in Islamic World Today?

  1 December 2012

  by ASGHAR ALI ENGINEER
  Why have I put a question-mark? Is there any doubt about it? Yes, very much. It would be too simplistic to assume that the potential for such a change already exists and it is only a push that is needed to bring about renaissance in the Islamic world. It did not happen even in the 19th century when conditions were more favourable, if not outright congenial. Very complex forces are at work in the contemporary world to admit this kind of change. Any simplistic (…)

• Too Much Power At Centre

  1 December 2012, by Kuldip Nayar

  Whatever happens in the next general elections—my bet is in early 2013—India will emerge an extremely divided country. The usual assumption that the two main political parties, the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), will have between them a majority of seats looks like going awry. Both have gone down so much in the public estimate that neither of them may cross even the three-figure mark. It’s obvious that there will be parties of all religious and ideological stripes in the field (…)

• Don’t Think We Are Morons

  1 December 2012, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The joint press conference held by Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal in Delhi on November 16 is ghastly even by the low standards of public morality Indian politicians have settled for in the past decade. They claim there was no such thing as a 2G scam!
  It was sheer ’sensationalism’! If so, why was it that Raja and Kanimozhi were locked up for months without bail? Because the BJP and CPM demanded it? Both PC and KS are trained lawyers who should have known (…)

• Revisiting the Dialogue of Inclusive Education: The Indian Course

  1 December 2012, by Madhulika Sharma

  November 11 is marked as the National Education Day in India. It is a day to commemo-rate the great educationist, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who envisioned education as the “birthright of every citizen”. While addressing the Central Advisory Board of Education on November 9-10, 1953, he stated: “A state cannot claim to have discharged its duty till it has provided for every single individual the means to the acquisition of knowledge and self-betterment.”1 India is still struggling to meet this (…)

• An Anatomy of the Rapes in Haryana

  1 December 2012, by Ranbir Singh

  Haryana these days is in the news for the wrong reasons. There have taken place many incidents of rape of women of weaker sections in the State during the past one month. The media has been projecting it as a failure of governance. But the Chief Minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, has been asserting that those who have committed these crimes shall not be spared. While the Opposition parties of all hues have been using these unfortunate events to tarnish the image of the ruling party, the (…)

• China’s Emerging Order

  1 December 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  Visiting China for the fourth time in thirty-six years does not make it dull or monotonous by repetition. Particularly today when Deng Xiaoping at the advanced age of 88 is leading a phenomenal drive for modernisation and opening up of the most populous country in the world.
  No doubt the question of Deng’s succession will be an item of concern when the Chinese leaders meet in their next Party Congress towards the end of the year. From all accounts, there is cohesion (…)

• Northeast Asia Island Conflict

  1 December 2012, by Harish Chandola

  Japan has got embroiled in disputes over islands with China, the Russian Federation and South Korea. These disputes, historical in nature, have become acute recently, with no settlement in sight. The latest is between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands and its affiliated islets in East China Sea, which the Japanese call Senkaku islands, close to their Ryukyu islands, near Okinawa and north of Formosa (Taiwan).
  Territorial dispute also broke out between Japan and the Russian Federation (…)