Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Resignation and After

  17 August 2012

  The following article is a follow-up of the letter that Prasenjit Bose, who was the head of the CPI-M’s research wing at the central party headquarters, wrote to the CPI-M leadership when he resigned from the party. (He was subsequently expelled from the CPI-M by the party leadership.) That letter was carried in Mainstream (June 30, 2012).
  by PRASENJIT BOSE
  Many issues have been raised in the debate surrounding my resignation from the CPI-M on June 22 protesting against the decision to (…)

• Blackout in India, Team Anna’s New Decision

  9 August 2012, by SC

  In the early hours of July 30, seven States in North India—Haryana, Punjab, J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, UP, Rajasthan—alongwith the Capital Delhi and the Union Territory of Chandigarh suffered their worst power outage in a decade when the northern power grid collapsed. Essential services were revived in a few hours no doubt, but full restoration of power supply in the affected regions took far longer, that is, more than half-a-day. But that this was not a one-off incident became (…)

• Country at Crossroads: Whither India, Whither Bharat?

  9 August 2012, by S G Vombatkere

  The core group led by Anna Hazare (called Team Anna) is looking to the 2014 general elections to support any political entity that is non-Congress, non-BJP and non-regional, that will support Team Anna’s dogmas of removing corruption, removing the corrupt from power, and enacting the Jan Lokpal Bill. Any right-minded citizen would have nothing but praise for the first two. But there is a school of thought that opines that the Jan Lokpal Bill arrogates too much unaccountable and wide-ranging (…)

• As Our Nation faces Grave Challenges, Leaders only Think of Themselves

  9 August 2012, by T J S George

  From economic slowdown and failed monsoon to the spread of violence and unabated communal passions (see Assam), the challenges facing India have assumed critical proportions. But all we get from the leaders of our country are personal manoeuvres for power and position. Two examples of this surfaced last week. Repeated appeals by Congress careerists finally elicited a gracious nod from Rahul Gandhi for ”assuming bigger responsibilities”. Sharad Pawar threw tantrums as part of a game to stop (…)

• Regional Leaders in Demand

  9 August 2012, by Kuldip Nayar

  The President in India is only a constitutional head. He or she draws his/her authority from the elected Parliament and State Assemblies. Yet the office became a point of contest because both the Congress and BJP, the two main political parties, wanted to test the waters before the 2014 general elections.
  The Congress has proved that its support, including that of its allies, is intact. Its candidate, Pranab Mukherjee, the former Finance Minister, has become India’s 13th President. The BJP (…)

• New Delhi’s Craven Policy vis-a-vis Damascus

  9 August 2012

  by Kanwal Sibal
  The position India is taking on the unfolding Syrian crisis does not do honour to our diplomacy.
  Last week, we supported the Western resolution providing for sanctions on Syria under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, unless its government effectively ended its military operations against the insurgents, who are backed by the West, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
  Russia and China vetoed this one-sided resolution which imposed specific and verifiable obligations on the (…)

• Syria’s Curse could as well be India’s

  9 August 2012, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The ascendancy of Wahhabism in West Asia will pose a serious threat to India’s social harmony and national security as time passes.
  The Jerusalem Post newspaper recently featured an illuminating piece on the growing threat of Wahhabism in India. We in India often speak propagandistically about the threat of a ‘Talibanised’ Pakistan to our country, overlooking that Pakistan is not an aberration in the region. The spectre that haunts Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (and Central Asia) alike (…)

• Pension for the Elderly: It’s no Charity, but a Human Right

  9 August 2012, by Rajindar Sachar

  It is a truism, though painful, that the Central Government’s priorities in fiscal matters are determined by the perceived sensitivities of the foreign and Indian corporate sector and the richer class rather than the urgent and humanitarian considerations for the poor and old citizens of India. How I wish that instead the government was to show urgent attention to the plight of about 10 crore elderly people (eight per cent of the Indian population, with one-sixth of them living without any (…)

• Light and Dark | Measuring up to Crisis

  9 August 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  From N.C.’s Writings
  Twentyfive years ago, on July 29, 1987, the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement came into force. This Agreement, signed by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President Junius Richard Jayawardene, was aimed at restoring peace in Sri Lanka, ameliorating the condition of Tamils there and bringing about a lasting solution to the ethnic problem in the island-state. However, the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), sent to Sri Lanka soon after the signing of the Agreement, (…)

• Urdu needs Kiss of Life and not Myopic Policies

  9 August 2012

  by Ather Farouqui
  I would like to take this opportunity of congratulating Nusrat Zaheer on his excellent views on various aspects of the Progressive Writers Association (PWA) in Mainstream (vol. L, no. 11, March 3, 2012) and Abdul W. Qasmi in ‘Whither National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language’ in Mainstream (vol. L, no. 19, April 28, 2012)
  Though Zaheer has commented on the PWA, his letter seems to have gone unnoticed in the CPI and CPI-M. This is owing largely to their well-known (…)