Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Nam’s Relevance in the Emerging Multipolar World and India

  2 September 2012, by Arun Mohanty

  The 16th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has kick-started at Tehran amid an intense debate about the Movement‘s relevance after the end of the Cold War and bipolar world. The media and public discourse about the NAM’s utility and relevance has intensified in the backdrop of stiff US opposition to the Movement as a whole and questioning Tehran’s right to host it in particular.
  When you look back at the more than five-decade-old history of the NAM, you will find that the US was (…)

• Iran Hosts the 16th NAM Summit

  2 September 2012

  by Sudhanshu Tripathi
  The successful inauguration of the Non-Aligned Summit at Tehran proves once again the underlying spirit of unity among its member nations, though it has yet to deal with the prevailing serious challenges in the form of hyperpower or superpower dominance through military interventions, economic sanctions or other coercive means against the spirit of the United Nations Charter.
  The ongoing 16th Non-Aligned Summit, which opened in Tehran on August 26, is certainly a (…)

• Understanding Conflict in BTAD of Assam

  2 September 2012

  by Arup Kumar Deka
  From the third week of July, western Assam has been witnessing violent clashes between the Bodos and non-Bodos living in the Bodo Territorial Autonomous District (BTAD) area. The spate of violence has led to the killing of more than 73 persons; 47 lives in worst-hit Kokrajhar district, 17 in Chirang, four in Dhubri; besides five were killed in police firing. However, the numbers of people killed are increasing as the violence has not come to an end. The violence unfolded (…)

• Dissecting the Bodo-Muslim Clashes and Attacks on North-East People

  2 September 2012, by Nandita Haksar

  The electronic media beamed images of thou-sands of people from the North-East climbing on to trains at Majestic Railway Station in Bangalore heading home to Guwahati. This panic was caused by anonymous SMSs warning that the Muslims would attack them after the month of Ramzan. On the first day 6500 young men and women from the North-East booked tickets for Guwahati but soon the figure reached 30,000.
  There were reports that similar reactions were happening in Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and (…)

• In Gujarat What You See is not
 What You Get

  2 September 2012, by Badri Raina

  This is a story that beggars belief, and puts into the shade everything we have thus far known of Narendra Modi’s prowess at chicanery and subterfuge.
  Indeed, had a report on this not appeared in so impeccable a daily as The Hindu, even my first instinct might have been to say “surely, this can’t be.”
  Let me cite in extenso from the write-up authored by the reputed Manas Dasgupta, in the issue of August 13:
  “Talking to journalists here, Mr Patel (once the redoubtable Chief Minister of (…)

• Satyagraha and Political Power

  2 September 2012, by Era Sezhiyan

  On August 2, 2012, Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer and several other eminent citizens made a statement calling upon Anna Hazare and his associates to end fasting and “focus their energies on creating an alternative political force that is democratic, accountable, ethical and non-violent and capable of leading an electoral revolution to democratise and decentralise power and make the power structures of the country more accou-ntable to the people”.
  Accepting the sober advice of Justice Krishna (…)

• Reflections On Our Time

  2 September 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  The concluding functions that brought the curtain down on the year-long celebrations of the golden jubilee of the ‘Quit India’ struggle of 1942, presented in sharp relief the slump in morale allround.
  With all the exposures of mega corruption in which the wielders of power have been entangled, and the unashamed buying of MPs so that the reins of the government do not slip out of one’s hand—all the homilies and harangues at the August 9 celebrations sounded so hollow (…)

• A Flicker of Hope, at last

  2 September 2012, by Kuldip Nayar

  Some recognition at last: That both President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should send messages of goodwill to the Hind-Pak Dosti Manch is a welcome development. The Manch is engaged in an endeavour to improve relations between the two countries. This was the 17th year for its members from the Manch and SAFMA in Pakistan to light candles at mid-night on August 14-15, when the two countries were born, on the Attari-Wagah border. The sky was rent with slogans like: Long (…)

• Hate Campaign, Ecuador, Citizenship Issue

  2 September 2012, by Humra Quraishi

  Going backwards. These happenings and the ongoing offshoots pull you backwards towards the times of Partition, when trains carried petrified beings from here to there, when fear and anarchy reigned, when politicians held sway with or without hate speeches, when opportunists made headway, when sane voices lay submerged amidst communal onslaught, when innocents sat hungry and horrified in refugee camps, when religious and regional divisions hit, killed, bled, displaced hundreds and thousands. (…)

• Pursuit of Julian Assange is an Assault on Freedom and a Mockery of Journalism

  2 September 2012

  by John Pilger
  The British Government’s threat to invade the Ecuadorean embassy in London and seize Julian Assange is of historic significance. David Cameron, the former PR man to a television industry huckster and arms salesman to sheikdoms, is well placed to dishonour international conventions that have protected Britons in places of upheaval. Just as Tony Blair’s invasion of Iraq led directly to the acts of terrorism in London on July 7, 2005, so Cameron and Foreign Secretary William (…)