Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Politics of Food and Hungry Indians

  20 August 2012

  by K.P. PRABHAKARAN NAIR
  In 1948, when the United Nations adopted the “Right to Food” covenant, and subsequently India became a signatory to this, none expected that the government of free India, after almost three-quarters of a century from being a signatory to this very important covenant, will play with politics of food and hunger. A food crisis is staring at India, prices of all food items are escalating, the poor and vulnerable are most hit, while New Delhi is playing politics with a (…)

• World Economy: Darker Days Ahead!

  20 August 2012, by Girish Mishra

  Next year, that is, 2013, is going to witness a terrible economic tsunami which will bring the global economy to a complete halt. This prediction is not from any mad man but a well-respected economist, Nouriel Roubini, a Professor at the Stern School of Business of the New York University. He also heads a consultancy firm, the Roubini Global Economics.
  Roubini, born in Istanbul on March 29, 1959, is a Jewish of Iranian origin. He was educated at Boccioni University, Milan (Italy) and (…)

• Questions of Freedom and People’s Emancipation

  20 August 2012, by Kobad Ghandy

  [Kobad Ghandy from Tihar Jail now writes on the concept of freedom vis-à-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. —Editor]
  PART I — THE CONTEXT
  Communism is the return of man himself as a social, i.e. really human being, a complete and conscious return which assimilates all the wealth of previous development. Communism, as a fully (…)

• Battered Humanity in Troubled North-East

  20 August 2012, by Barun Das Gupta

  BOOK REVIEW
  The Judgement that Never Came by Nandita Haksar and Sebastian M. Hongray; Chicken Neck Publishers, New Delhi; Price: Rs 495.
  This book is an intensely human story of a group of innocent villagers in Oinam, an obscure Naga village in the Senapati district of Manipur, who suffered terribly in the hands of our security forces who are supposed to protect members of the civil society from those called terrorists. Way back in 1987, the even tenor of life in that quiet village was (…)

• Lakshmi Sahgal

  20 August 2012, by Sagari Chhabra

  TRIBUTE
  Lakshmi Swaminathan Sahgal was born in Madras in 1914 to an unusual Brahmin lawyer, Subharana Swaminathan, and her mother, Ammukutty Menon. Her parents were influenced by the Congress and her mother, according to Lakshmi, “earlier a socialite, but after my father’s sudden death, founded the All India’s Women’s Conference, got a ticket and won!”. Lakshmi trained to be a doctor, but she says: “My reasons for going to Singapore in 1940, were to be free from a marriage and to also join (…)

• Once there was Hindutva Terror ... ?

  20 August 2012, by Subhash Gatade

  “Bomb blasts have taken place near the Delhi High Court, in Bombay, Bangalore etc. Within a few hours of such bomb blasts many TV channels started showing news item that Indian Mujahidin or Jaish-e-Mohammed or Harkatul-jihad-e-Islam have sent e-mails or SMS claiming responsibility. The names of such alleged organisations will always be Muslim names. Now an e-mail can be sent by any mischievous person, but by showing this on TV channels and next day in the newspapers the tendency is to brand (…)

• Positive Signal in Dismal Scenario

  17 August 2012, by SC

  The London Olympics are drawing to a close. These Games have proved beyond doubt that Jamaica’s Usain Bolt is the world’s biggest sprinter since he won both the 100m and 200m races in two successive Olympics—a feat that is without parallel till date since the inception of the modern Olympics in 1896. Also ace swimmer Michael Phelps of the USA became the most decorated Olympian after winning his record 19th medal surpassing former Soviet Union’s Larisa Latynina who had held the previous (…)

• Looking back on August 1942

  17 August 2012

  On August 9 this year was observed the ‘Quit India’ struggle’s seventieth anniversary. On this occasion we reproduce here Aruna Asaf Ali’s interview to Mainstream at the time of that struggle’s fiftieth anniversary (it was published in this journal’s August 8, 1992 issue) since Arunaji was the virtual embodiment of that last battle for India’s freedom from alien rule. That was one of Arunaji’s last interviews to any publication.
  AN INTERVIEW WITH ARUNA ASAF ALI
  How do you reflect on (…)

• Communists and ‘Quit India’ Struggle

  17 August 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  This was the week, fiftytwo years ago, that marked the parting of ways between the Communists and the Congress. It was the Communist opposition to the ‘Quit India’ resolution at the historic AICC session in August 1942 that ultimately led to the expulsion of the Communists from the Congress organisations in 1946. Incidentally, the eviction of the Communists from the Congress marked the beginning of the process of transformation of the Congress from an all-embracing (…)

• Quit India Movement and INA versus Hindutva

  17 August 2012, by Shamsul Islam

  This month we are celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Quit India Movement [QIM] and Indian National Army [INA] or Azad Hind Fauj which 1943 onward was commanded by Netaji Subash Chandra Bose. It is true that the INA commanded by Netaji and the QIM led by the Indian National Congress had serious ideological divergence; both stood for two different strategies for the independence of India. However, both these movements proved to be milestones in the history of the Indian freedom struggle. (…)