Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Elinor Ostrom: Her Thoughts and Legacy

  4 July 2012

  TRIBUTE
  by VIVEK KUMAR SRIVASTAVA
  With the passing of Elinor Ostrom (August 7, 1933 - June 6, 2012), an intellectual life ends but not the philosophy of humanity which is likely to dominate the future generations in the years to come. She was a political scientist and won the Noble Prize in Economics (The Sveridges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences) in 2009. She was the first woman to receive the Noble Prize in Economics and belonged to the evolving rare group of intellectuals who came (…)

• Environment: Need for Debate

  4 July 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  The Earth Summit has one solid achievement to its credit. It has put the issue of environment protection at the centre-stage of polities, both at the global and domestic levels.
  Prior to the massive gathering of statesmen, scientists and activists at Rio, the problems of environment were treated for all practical purposes as something peripheral, not a basic issue in the development process. The problem of rapid deforestation used to be looked upon in isolation. (…)

• The Good Earth

  4 July 2012, by Bharat Dogra

  India has about 16 per cent of the world’s population and two per cent of the world’s land. The livelihoods of nearly two-thirds of India’s population are linked to farmlands, village com-mons and forests. Given the scarcity of land as well as the extent of livelihoods linked to it, it is of the greatest importance to plan land-use in such a way that the base of sustainable liveli-hoods is protected. The importance of this task has further increased immensely in recent times of escalating (…)

• Red Salute to a Young Communist

  4 July 2012, by M K Bhadrakumar

  Hailing from a “communist family” in the “red rain land” of Kerala, growing up in an environment where Communist stalwarts would all of a sudden drop by at home— iconic figures such as AKG, E.K. Nayanar, K.R. Gowri, M.N. Govindan Nair, C. Achutha Menon, T.V. Thomas—and as an inquisitive school boy with intellectual pretensions at a highly impression-able age eavesdropping on their animated conversations with my late father, and then in the privacy of the mind co-relating those poig-nant (…)

• Prasenjit Bose’s Letter of Resignation from CPM

  4 July 2012

  DOCUMENT The candidature of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee of the Congress-led UPA for the post of President has split the Left Front with two parties—the CPI and RSP—deciding to abstain in the presidential poll, while the CPI-M and Forward Bloc have chosen to support him. Protesting against the decision, the former Convenor of the Research Unit of the CPI-M, Prasenjit Bose, has sent in his resignation letter to the CPI-M leadership. The following is the text of the letter.
  Dear (…)

• Whirligig Politics

  27 June 2012, by SC

  Several developments in the international scene and on the regional plane as well as those related to the domestic political situation have assumed considerable significance of late.
  The G-20 meeting at Los Cabos, Mexico found PM Manmohan Singh donning the robe of a global philanthropist to pledge $ 10 billion as the Indian contribution to the IMF’s additional $ 430 billion firewall for the eurozone. Dr Singh’s plainspeak—especially his sermon against the European approach to solving the (…)

• Guilty at the Top

  27 June 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  So, the fat is at last in the fire. The concern over the blatant speculation in the share-market which has shaken the country had to come over our Finance Minister only in driblets and that too after tremendous pressure in Parliament. Our Finance Minister did know that the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensex began to shoot up instantly with his Budget, to the great applause of the brokers and their colluding bankers. That was the time when the Chairman of the National Housing (…)

• Nazi Attack on USSR and Victory over Fascism

  27 June 2012, by Anil Rajimwale

  REMEMBERING JUNE 22, 1941
  The largest ever military assault on any country was made on June 22, 1941 when Nazi Germany and its allies unleashed on the Soviet Union more than 5.5 million troops in a ‘blitzkrieg’ or sudden assault in the night of that date along the longest war-borders of more than 4500 kms. The massive war machine included more than 47,000 artillery pieces, 4200 plus tanks and more than 5000 war planes. The 190 Nazi divisions were accompanied by a large number of allied (…)

• Endangering Peace in Punjab

  27 June 2012, by Kuldip Nayar

  When the Akalis are out of power, they indulge either in a dharam morcha or some act which would evoke religious passions among the Sikhs. But when they adopt the same tactics while in authority, it means that they want to divert attention from problems like unemploy-ment, drug trafficking and farmers’ declining incomes. To the horror of the country, Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal filed the other day a mercy petition on behalf of Balwant Singh Rajoana, the killer of former Chief (…)

• The Army: Missing Muslim India

  27 June 2012

  by ALI AHMED
  This article begins with a set of statistics and thereafter proceeds to discuss these. The Platinum Jubilee issue of the magazine of the Indian Military Academy, published in 2007, has some revealing tidbits of information. From the lists of various officer alumni who have done the Academy proud, it is obvious that Muslims are few and far between. Only six Muslim officers, who have passed out of the IMA, have made the supreme sacrifice for the country since the 1971 War. Only (…)