Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Discovery of Indira

  20 June 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  Cowardice takes many forms. In may manifest itself in abject surrender, or, instead, in dramatic defiance. Indira Gandhi opted for high drama when she failed to appear before the Shah Commission to testify to only some specific cases of alleged excesses during Emergency. Despite an appearance of defiance—put up in the statement drafted by the battery of lawyers hired by her—Indira Gandhi today is the picture of total insecurity, and here lies her cowardice and not (…)

• Rio+20 and its Historical Context — A Challenge to the System

  20 June 2012, by Branislav Gosovic

  The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) is taking place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 21-22, 2012. It is being called Rio+20 as the Conference is being held 20 years after the UN-sponsored “Earth Summit” that took place in the same city in 1992. For two days multilateral diplomacy would be at work while discussing environmental issues, water, sanitation, corporate responsibility. The following article by a distinguished expert is being published here as a (…)

• Three Events

  12 June 2012, by SC

  Three events of the past few days have captured national attention.
  The murder of Brahmeshwar Singh, who headed Bihar’s outlawed private militia of landlords (Ranvir Sena), in Katira Mohalla under Nawada P.S. in the Bhojpur district on June 1 triggered a violent backlash that started in the district town of Arrah and spread to even the capital, Patna. Formed in the early 1990s, the Ranvir Sena targeted Dalits in central and south Bihar at a time the Dalit cause was spearheaded by the (…)

• Three Years of UPA-II: Insufferable Saga of Corruption and Economic Disaster

  12 June 2012

  The following is the lead article in ML Update (Vol 15, No 13, May 25-June 4, 2012), the weekly news magazine of the CPI-ML (Liberation). It is being reproduced here due to its relevance at present.
  Even as the UPA Government celebrated the third anniversary of its second term with a report card claiming record foodgrains production and a dramatic decline in poverty, the country was treated to an unprecedented oil shock with the price of petrol shooting up by more than 10 per cent. A litre (…)

• Trust Deficit: People’s Strugggle at Kudankulam

  12 June 2012, by S G Vombatkere

  People demand Information
  Before locating a mega or large project on the ground, the suitability of suggested or possible multiple sites is based upon site evaluation of each, which is a scientific-technical-managerial-administrative process. Comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the sites obtained by the evaluation studies determines final choice of the site, which is essentially a political decision. The final responsibility rests, as it should, with the political executive. (…)

• Bengal Civic Polls: TMC Retains Hold Over Urban Voters

  12 June 2012, by Barun Das Gupta

  Six municipalities in West Bengal went to polls earlier this month. The result: The Trinamul Congress (TMC) wrested four of them, three from the Left Front and one from the Congress, while the CPI-M and the Congress could retain their control in two—Haldia and Coopers Camp respectively.
  The six civic bodies were spread across the whole State—Haldia and Panshkura in the south, Nalhati and Durgapur in the west, Dhupguri in the north and Coopers Camp in the centre. What would happen in the (…)

• "Irrigation Makes you Free, Irrigation Makes you Rich"

  12 June 2012, by Gilbert Etienne

  “Irrigation makes you free, irrigation makes you rich.” This we read in the Archives of Catalonia (Spain) in 1243. Such a statement, already valid in Europe and China at that time, remains more topical than ever in Asia, including India. The shift from rainfed to irrigated crops brings considerable socio-economic benefits to the local people, including small cultivators and landless labourers.
  This was amply confirmed by the impact of canal irrigation under the British, in the (…)

• Bangladesh: War Crimes Tribunal Judgment

  12 June 2012, by Kuldip Nayar

  It is the same old sequence of hartals, the same old exhibition of hooliganism and the same old relentless oppression by the state. Indeed, much of this sense of similarity has characterised the story of Bangladesh since it won independence in 1971. You may begin or end the story from whichever point you want to.
  I have been seeing this pattern since the emergence of the country’s two main political parties, the Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). What the whole thing (…)

• Saadat Hasan Manto in his Birth Centenary

  12 June 2012, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS As it is there are other idiotic things to view, so why watch those television serials? Well, it’s this simple rationale that keeps me away from the small screen, unless that can’t-help-it type of situation arises. And last week-end when I did switch it on, it was Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate …that particular episode where victims of child abuse went about offloading, baring, throwing out unsettling details of those encounters.
  That noon I sat glued to the small screen, listening (…)

• RTE Act, Minority Schools and Supreme Court Verdict

  12 June 2012

  IN PERSPECTIVE, LOOKING BEYOND THE OBVIOUS
  by NADIM NIKHAT
  The Supreme Court’s final verdict on April 12, 2011 on the Writ Petition (Civil) no. 95 of 2010 and 30 such other petitions, in almost two years with thirty day-long hearings, adjournments and arguments, has changed the way the RTE Act came into play.
  The RTE Act has attempted to bring all primary schools under a universal umbrella of registration, regulation and standards. It has opened an opportunity for children of certain (…)