Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• India needs Islamic Banking for Inclusive Growth and Infrastructure Development

  30 April 2012

  by H. ABDUR RAQEEB
  The following is a response to Dr Ather Farouqui’s article “Islamic Banking in India at the Service of Pan-Islamists” in Mainstream (Vol L, No 11, March 3, 2012). “Islamic Banking in India at the Service of Pan-Islamists”, an article by Dr Ather Farouqui, is timely. It has evoked interest in the community as well as the country as a whole and a serious debate on the gaps and gains of Islamic finance and banking has started. Thus it has indeed turned to be a great (…)

• Meaning of Agni

  30 April 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  The week, that marked the twentyfifth anniversary of the passing away of Jawaharlal Nehru —on May 22, 1989, India projected a political image of its strength and determination before the world which no amount of borrowed arsenal could have achieved. The firing of the intermediate range missile, Agni, hitting a target a thousand kilometres away, was not just an engineering feat, its importance lies in the fact that it was designed and manufactured in India by our (…)

• Shutting the School Doors on the Muslim Child

  30 April 2012

  by HEM BORKER
  That a news report in The Hindu titled “In Delhi’s nursery classes, Muslim children are a rarity” (March 19, 2012), found mention in the Rajya Sabha the same day, leading to “heated arguments” and a “verbal duel” in the Upper House, is symptomatic of the polarisation of public discourse on the education of Muslims. Almost any discussion on the subject slides into binaries: religious versus secular, exclusion versus appeasement, rights versus politics, reality versus rhetoric, (…)

• Mainstreaming Equity in a World of Growth

  30 April 2012

  BOOK REVIEW
  by RICHA KUMAR
  Alternative Economic Survey—India: Two Decades of Neoliberalism by Alternative Survey Group; Daanish Books, New Delhi; 2011; pp. 466; Rs 450.
  For the last 20 years, the Alternative Economic Survey Group has brought out a compilation of essays in response to the government’s Economic Survey published around the time of the Budget. This has been an important annual intervention in the debates surrounding growth and develop-ment, bringing to the forefront (…)

• The First Kannada Saraswati Samman Awardee on Jawaharlal Nehru

  30 April 2012

  by N.S. RAGHUNATH
  Kannada, which was credited with the classical language status recently, seems to be walking away with every prestigious literary award the country has instituted. It has won eight Jnanpeeths, a Magasaysay (K.V. Subbanna), a Kalidas (B.V. Karanth), a Kabir (M.G. Adiga) and now the Saraswati Samman by S.L. Bhyrappa, which has given the people something to celebrate. It has made many a writer blissfully happy, but the benchmark for the Saraswati Samman, I’m afraid, has (…)

• Lenin

  30 April 2012, by Jawaharlal Nehru

  April 22 this year marked the 142nd birth anniversary of that immortal revolutionary, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. On this occasion we remember him by reproducing the following excerpts from Nehru’s article on him that appeared in The Hindu (April 5, 1928).
  ‘I know a pair of eyes which have been for ever numbed by the burning sorrow of the Terror,’ said Gorky of Lenin. This sorrow did not leave him to the end. It made him a fierce fanatic and gave him the strength of will to persevere and (…)

• Spanish Language in India: Opportunity or Explosion?

  30 April 2012

  by ESTEFANÍA PADILLA VELOZ
  Who is learning Spanish in India these days? If it takes you more than five seconds to answer this question, let us work on your blindfold. With 329 million native speakers, Spanish language has proven to be one of the most important languages in the business field, due to growing interaction between India and the Spanish-speaking countries.
  Let´s have a brief look at where India stands at the moment. In terms of world economic growth, Asia in general has (…)

• ’Acting Is My Life’: Zohra Segal

  30 April 2012

  Zohra Segal, the grand old lady of Indian dance and theatre, is turning 100 this week—she was born on April 27, 1912. She was the leading actress and dancer with the Prithvi Theatre, Bombay from 1945 to 1959. She has to her credit scores of feature films in India and abroad. One of her sisters, Azra Butt, also a prominent actress with the Prithvi Theatre, migrated to Pakistan where she was a noted stage actress; she has now passed away.
  More than twenty years ago, when Zohra was doing a (…)

• A Meaningful Proposal

  14 April 2012, by SC

  The outcome of the India-Pakistan summit meeting in New Delhi on April 8 has offered a new ray of hope in restoring the bilateral cooperative relationship.
  PM Manmohan Singh needs to be complimented for seizing the opportunity when Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari conveyed his desire for a private visit to Ajmer Sharif and hosting a luncheon meeting with the Pakistani leader in the Capital last Sunday. Although detailed discussions were not to be expected in so short a trip, the (…)

• A Partisan Government

  14 April 2012, by Kuldip Nayar

  At the height of an Akali agitation in the eighties, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, then out of office, reached Delhi under the guise of a truck driver and burnt a copy of the Indian Constitution. He personally did not agree with his Akali party’s fiat but went along with the decision as a disciplined soldier. Subsequently, he regretted his act of burning the document.
  I don’t know whether Badal has felt the same way after filing a mercy petition to the President on the (…)