Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• How About Abolishing Parliament?
Loss is Nil. And Look at the Savings

  2 October 2012, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  It’s not just Parliament that is paralysed. India is paralysed. At one level, bills are stuck, files don’t move. At another, eyes are shut, minds are closed. All that happens is: Politicians get their allowances and their perks without let or hindrance. Galbraith saw a functioning anarchy in the 1960s. Today, even as an anarchy, we are unable to function.
  The irony is that what party leaders say of their opponents is absolutely true. Except that it applies as much to them as (…)

• Syria: What Needs To Be Done

  2 October 2012, by Bashir Mohammad

  The international scenario continues to be dominated by the serious situation in Syria where the West (read the US) has been planning an intervention for long with help from strange bedfellows (from the Al-Qaeda to Israel) even though that has not yet materialised. The twin blasts that struck the heavily guarded head-quarters of the Syrian Army in the heart of the country’s capital, Damascus, on September 26 have given a new dimension to the efforts to dislodge Bashar Al-Assad—these are (…)

• High Risks of Investing in Unstable Georgia

  2 October 2012, by Benjamin Todd

  Georgia today is a picture of political and economic instability. The risks of investing in the country’s economy are thus extremely high.
  Foreign analysts in particular have noted that the perspective of stable development of the Georgian economy in the forseable future is bleak. That is because the country is completely depen-dent on continuous foreign inflows. Hence Georgia has a vast external debt and most of this debt has to be repaid by 2013. It is most unlikely that Tbilisi would (…)

• Beyond Liberalisers’ Comprehension

  28 September 2012, by SC

  While commenting on the sharply critical Washington Post article on the PM’s performance, and the PMO and government spokespersons’ over-reaction to it, it was written in these columns two weeks ago that such over-reaction exposes the “inherent weakness and infirmity” of the Manmohan dispensation. But, it was also pointed out, there was “a danger: would such sharp attacks on the PM from the side of the US media prompt the Manmohan Singh Government to embark on full-scale reforms to belie the (…)

• The Growing Divide between Economics and Politics in India

  28 September 2012, by Arun Kumar

  The Union Government has gone for a slew of ‘reforms’ and drawn strong protests from people and the political parties both in the UPA and outside it. The package consists of raising the price of diesel, restricting the LPG cylinder supply at subsidised prices to six per annum per family and allowing FDI in the aviation sector and multi-brand retail trading (MBRT). The first step is inflationary since it will immediately impact all prices through the cascading effect. In the current scenario (…)

• They Just Held On

  28 September 2012, by Kuldip Nayar

  Villagers, mostly women, stood neck-deep in water for 17 days at a village in Khandwa district, Madhya Pradesh, to draw the attention of the bureaucracy-ridden governments, with absentee Ministers at Bhopal and Delhi, to the sufferings of the satyagrahis. The fertile land of the villagers had been devoured by the impoun-ded water at Omkareshwar dam which was raised to a new height to generate more power and draw more irrigation water. Neither did any Minister, nor a top bureaucrat think even (…)

• Aseem Trivedi is Not Seditious

  28 September 2012, by S G Vombatkere

  Aseem Trivedi has cartooned a Western-style flush toilet with the bowl showing pillars similar to those of Parliament House, and titled it “National Toilet”. The distinctive Parliament House building is obviously used by the cartoonist to symbolise the State and Central legisla-tures. Another cartoon showing the Ashoka Pillar capital with wolves in place of the lions, and “Bhrashtameva Jayate” in place of “Satyameva Jayate”, is titled “National Emblem”. Yet another titled “Gang Rape of (…)

• Land Reforms and the Significance of Jan Satyagraha

  28 September 2012, by Bharat Dogra

  At a time when land reforms, and in particular the land rights of the poorest landless people, are being increasingly pushed to the margins, it requires a lot of courage and a firm faith in one’s convictions for any organisation to pour all its efforts and energy into a nationwide movement for land reforms. But this is precisely what Ekta Parishad has done, organising a continuing series of foot-marches in 338 districts, an effort that is ongoing for one year (October 2011 to October 2012). (…)

• Official Neglect Despite Great Significance

  28 September 2012

  If the most important factor in the context of poverty, hunger and the related discontent in India has to be identified in just one word, then this world undoubtedly will be ‘land’. It is injustices and distortions relating to land distribution which are the single most important cause of poverty, hunger and rural unrest not only in India but in many other countries as well.
  The solution clearly is land reforms, which may be defined here as ensuring proper land rights for all the rural (…)

• Proposal from the Bottom to Address Land-related Problems

  28 September 2012

  Ground-Up Understanding Of Land Issue
  by P.V RAJAGOPAL
  Ekta Parishad and about 2000 other organisations are coming together in October 2012 to organise a Jan Satyagraha, one of the largest non-violent actions seen in recent times. One lakh landless people will begin their 350 km padayatra to New Delhi from Gwalior to draw the attention of the state to the promises that were made to them five years ago by the current Prime Minister and apply moral pressure on the government to formulate a (…)