Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Egypt’s Morsi resets ties with US

  16 October 2012, by M K Bhadrakumar

  This article was written sometime ago but could not be used earlier due to unavoidable reasons. It is now being belatedly published as its contents have not yet lost their vailidity.
  The confusion in the American mind about Egypt ended recently, a mere nine days since President Barack Obama made the famous remark in a television interview that he wasn’t sure of the post-Hosni Mubarak Egypt being the United States’ ally. The confusion actually arose when US National Security Council (…)

• Ominous Moves in Kathmandu • Attrition on Border • Reappraisal in Congo | Peking’s Shadow Over NEFA
 • President’s Unique Initiative

  16 October 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  Fifty years ago in this month itself the Chinese aggression on India rocked the country. It formally happened on October 20 but the preparations for it were going on for quite sometime and Chinese intrusion on Indian territory had taken place since the beginning of September 1962. To mark the anniversary we reproduce here N.C.’s ‘New Delhi Skyline’ in the Mainstream (which first appeared on September 1, 1962) issues of October 13, 1962 and October 20, 1962 (the October (…)

• JP: Some Reflections

  16 October 2012

  On the occasion of Jayaprakash Narayan’s 110th birth anniversary we are carrying the following piece written by N.C. under the pseudonym ‘Analyst’
  ANALYST
  Jayaprakash Narayan has carried with him fulsome tributes from all political circles-his adherents and admirers, his adversaries and detractors. A life of ups and downs of heroic times and despairing moments Living beyond the Psalmist’s assigned span, JP had not only witnessed mighty deeds but participated in them in the company of the (…)

• Reading Mohit Sen’s Autobiography in the Ideological Twilight of Indian Communism

  16 October 2012

  by PRATIP CHATTOPADHYAY
  The following is an article written specially on the occasion of Communist stalwart S.A. Dange’s 113th birth anniversary on October 10, 2012.
  I
  Ideologies are not simply political philosophies. They are, essentially, normative arguments to motivate people to concrete action. Generally speaking, proponents and adherents of any ideology do believe that their system of thought or the worldview is the most perfect one and capable of solving all problems in the (…)

• Remembering Theatre Critic Ramesh Chander ’Charlie’ (1917-2012)

  16 October 2012, by S.K. Pande

  TRIBUTE
  On September 26, 2012 at the ripe age of 97, veteran theatre critic Ramesh Chander, popu-larly known as ‘Charlie’, died in the Capital after a prolonged illness. With his death, India lost one of its oldest critics while Delhi definitely lost its grand old man of theatre criticism, a man who had over 70 years of writing to his credit. To understand Charlie one has to understand his times—and, of course, the wide canvas of his hectic life. He grew up during the British Raj. As a (…)

• Yet Another Mega Scam

  16 October 2012, by P R Dubhashi

  The nation was reeling under the impact of two mega scams—the Commonwealth Games scam and 2G spectrum scam—when it was struck by yet another scam now known as the ‘Coalgate’ scam relating to the allocation of coal mines. It burst open when a prominent newspaper carried a headline about a ten lakh crore scam in the allocation of coal mines—several times bigger than the notorious 2G spectrum scam. This was when the relevant CAG report was yet to reach the government. A draft report was about (…)

• Behind Second Round of Big-ticket Reforms

  11 October 2012, by SC

  The massive countrywide bandh of September 20 against the UPA Government’s decisions to hike diesel prices, cut subsidy in cooking gas as well as introduce 51 per cent FDI in multi-brand retail and 49 per cent FDI in aviation obviously has had no impact on the Manmohan Singh dispensation at the Centre. Or else it would not have gone ahead to carry out a second bagful of big-ticket reforms today.
  The latest decisions of the Union Cabinet (which would however have to await Parliament’s (…)

• Tribute to Eric Hobsbawm

  11 October 2012

  Eric Hobsbawm, 95, one of the greatest historians of the twentieth century, has passed into history. He breathed his last in London on Monday, October 1, 2012. When his historian colleague Victor Kiernan passed away in 2009 (also at the age of 95), Hobsbawm had written in The Guardian that he was "a man of unselfconscious charm and staggeringly wide range or learning”, adding:
  He was also one of the last survivors of the generation of British Marxist historians of the 1930s and 1940s… He (…)

• War, Peace and Hegemony at the Beginning of the Twentyfirst Century

  11 October 2012

  by Eric Hobsbawm
  Let me begin by thanking The Book Review Literary Trust for inviting me to enjoy the privilege, tonight, of giving this second lecture in memory of Nikhil Chakravartty. I have a small personal qualification for giving it, for he belonged to that group of my student friends from the 1930s, that remarkable crop of young Indians who became Communists in Britain and were eventually to play a significant part in the political and intellectual life of their country. Among those (…)

• FDI in Multi-Retail is Anti-Aam Aadmi

  11 October 2012, by Shyam Chand

  The following article, by a Congress leader, is being reproduced from Mainstream (May 26, 2012).
  Sam Walton, who created the largest and most powerful retail marketing organisation, died in 1992 as the richest man in America. Now his successors are just behind Bill Gates.
  Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh in their report, ‘The Top 200: The Rise of Global Corporate Power’, issued by the Institute of Policy Studies, Washington D.C., September 25, 1996, wrote: “The annual sales of the (…)