Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Testing Time for Non-Alignment
 • After Menon’s Exit

  21 November 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  With American arms flown in in consi-derable quantity, along with defence weapons from other Western countries, the scales of non-alignment are threatened to be disturbed. While the allergy against Western arms has gone even in the case of the Indian Communists—such being the logic of the Chinese invasion of our motherland—the question has come up in a big way as to its impact on our foreign policy itself.
  Although the Swatantra clamour for scrapping non-alignment (…)

• Kerala: Eazhanair Combination — A Boost 
For Hindu Fundamentalism

  21 November 2012, by K G Somasekharan Nair

  August 2012 has much importance in the chronicle of communal politics in Kerala. For that was the month when leaders of two caste-based organisations decided to merge by forgetting all discords and enmities maintained by them for decades. Those were the SNDP of the Ezhavas and NSS of the Nairs. There is no official report regarding the number of members each caste has but it is believed that Ezhavas constitute 25 per cent and Nairs 15 per cent of the total population of the State. Both (…)

• ‘Other’ America Reasserts

  21 November 2012, by SC

  In the midst of the unending reports of scams, affecting both the principal constituent of the ruling UPA and the main Opposition party at the Centre, the latest predicament of the BJP President facing corruption charges buttressed by irrefutable media evidence and the crisis brewing within the organisation, as also the unequivocal pronouncements from the CAG accusing the Union Government functionaries of ‘brazen’ behaviour, the outcome of the US presidential election has come as a whiff of (…)

• Dissolute Governments, Disillusioned People

  21 November 2012, by S G Vombatkere

  Anna Hazare and General (Retd) V.K. Singh have called for Parliament to be dissolved immediately. They point out that the (Union) government is “looting” the people and “bending to the corporates”, and people have lost faith in it. There is also little doubt that the people are disillusioned with Parliament because of its general non-functioning and the fact that a good proportion of its Members are charged with serious crimes and offences. People are also thoroughly fed up with the Union (…)

• A Dark Moment of Our History

  21 November 2012, by Vidya Bhushan Rawat

  October 31, 1984 witnessed one of the most gruesome incidents of our time. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated at her residence by her own security personnel. The country plunged into darkness as a highly communalised anti-Sikh violence took place threatening the very integrity of the country. India cannot endure the repetition of such incidents and must learn its lessons from the tratedy. It was in the early morning of October 31 that Indira Gandhi was preparing herself for an (…)

• Remembering October - November 1984

  21 November 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Early next week, on October 31, the country would be observing the tenth death anniversary of Indira Gandhi who had been cruelly shot down on this very day by her own security guards right inside her residence.
  By all accounts it was a ghastly tragedy committ6ed by those who had been embittered by the ‘Operation Bluestar’ at the Golden Temple at Amritsar. The perpetrators of Indira’s assassination owned up the full responsibility for their gory deed which in their (…)

• CJI and Coverage of Court Cases

  21 November 2012, by Kuldip Nayar

  The following was written quite sometime ago but could not be published earlier for unavoidable reasons.
  The news was that the Supreme Court hadn’t framed any blanket guidelines for the media coverage of court cases. Most people felt relieved. However, much to the dismay of those who believe in open justice and free speech, the court had actually done worse.
  It may be a personal victory for the outgoing Chief Justice of India S.H. Kapadia, but a reverse for the rule of law. The highest (…)

• Journalists Report the Police Version
 of Crime: Seema Azad

  21 November 2012

  INTERVIEW
  Do journalists question enough?—asks Seema Azad, the Dastak editor who was charged under the UAPA, in this interview with Shobha S.V.
  Thirtyseven-year old Seema Azad’s calm demeanour belies the trauma that she’s had to undergo. Azad, editor of the Dastak magazine and Organising Secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), was arrested in February 2010 in Allahabad along with her husband, Vishwa Vijay, on charges of sedition and the UAPA. Vishwa Vijay has been a (…)

• Questions of Freedom and People’s Emancipation — IV

  21 November 2012, by Kobad Ghandy

  Kobad Ghandy from Tihar Jail is writing on the concept of freedom vis-s-vis present-day society as also in relation to a future just order, bringing out some causes for the failure of the erstwhile socialist states. It will comprise a series of five to six articles. The first article (covering Part I—The Context) appeared in Mainstream’s Independence Day Special (August 18, 2012), the second one (covering Part II—Search for Freedom through History) in this journal’s September 15, 2012 issue, (…)

• The Red Vignettes

  21 November 2012

  Remembering October Revolution on its 95th Anniversary Seventh November this year marks the 95th anniversary of the historic October Revolution. Although the politico-economic situation in Russia has undergone a sea-change since 1991, the worldwide significance of the Russian Revolution of 1917 has not waned in the least; on the contrary its importance has been heightened in the light of the latest international events capped by the global financial meltdown that has shaken the world (…)