Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Message of the CPI Congress

  14 April 2012

  by BISHWAJIT SEN
  The 21st CPI Congress (March 27-31, 2012) came at a time when the ruling UPA-II is losing its credibility fast in the public mind. The host to the party Congress was the Bihar unit of the CPI which, with limited resources, managed things extremely well. The credit for this goes to the Bihar leadership of the CPI and specially its unassuming Secretary, Badri Narayan Lall, a Communist of long standing and firm convictions. Their efforts made the CPI visible in Bihar again. A (…)

• CPI-M’s Twentieth Congress

  14 April 2012, by Barun Das Gupta

  The CPI-M held its Twentieth Congress at Kozhikode in Kerala from April 4 to 9. The words ’

• The Importance of Remembering

  14 April 2012, by Nandita Haksar

  The Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi phoned to inform me that Bangladesh had decided to recognise my father, Parmeshwar Narain Haksar’s contribution to the Bangladesh liberation war in 1971. Would I accept their invitation to go to Dhaka and accept the Friends of Liberation War Honour as his daughter?
  I asked for two days’ time to think over. I had just returned from a gruelling 105-day trip of the North-East region of India where the problem of influx of illegal migrants from (…)

• How the Indira-Abdullah Accord was Signed in 1974

  14 April 2012, by Balraj Puri

  In 1964, after the sudden death of Pandit Nehru, Sheikh Abdullah returned from Pakistan, cutting his journey short. I went to the Delhi airport to receive him. After landing, he told me to take him first to Nehru’s samadhi.
  He was so stunned by the tragic news that he could hardly utter a brief sentence. He said that had he known that Panditji’s death was so near, he need not have gone to Pakistan. He had got full agreement there on all points.
  I just said: “Be sure you do not miss the (…)

• The Fishermen’s ‘Dilemma’ between India and Italy

  14 April 2012

  by SAMUEL J. KURUVILLA
  The alleged ‘counter-piracy’ incident that happened in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Kollam in Kerala several weeks ago does not show any sign of ending. This ‘incident’ resulted in the death of two innocent Malayalee fishermen who had set out in a boat along with nine other fishermen from the Neendakara fishing harbour near Kollam. The incident blew into a major diplomatic row between India and Italy as the culprits responsible for the death of the two fisher-men (…)

• Human Rights in Sri Lanka — A Perennial Question Mark

  14 April 2012, by Apratim Mukarji

  Twenty years ago Mahinda Rajapaksa was a fiercely dedicated human rights lawyer and, along with Mangala Samaraweera, a pillar of strength to Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike who was heading the Mothers’ Front in southern Sri Lanka. The latter was a frontal organisation to fight for justice for the thousands of Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) members killed by the Sri Lankan Army and police in their successful campaign against the Sinhala nationalist-terrorist force.
  Among his many qualities like (…)

• Honouring Ambedkar

  14 April 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS April 14 this year marks the 121st birth anniversary of Dr Babasaheb Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar. On this occasion we are reproducing the following piece by N.C. and a few relevant articles to offer our sincere homage to the abiding memory of that towering personality.
  The award of the Bharat Ratna posthumously on B.R. Ambedkar raises mixed feelings. No doubt Ambedkar was one of the stalwarts of modern India; the high-water mark of his career was that he contributed most to (…)

• Babasaheb Ambedkar and the Neoliberal Economic Reforms

  14 April 2012, by Anand Teltumbde

  When the International Monetary Fund and World Bank-dictated neoliberal policy package was adopted by the Narasimha Rao Government in July 1991, with a false projection to the people that those were homegrown economic reforms, albeit with a Thatcherite apologia that ‘there was no alternative’, many intellectuals, whether they understood economics or not, vied with each other in supporting it to get into the good books of the government. Economics has by and large been an outcaste in Dalit (…)

• Merit, a Curse for Dalits? Elucidation of Discrimination

  14 April 2012, by A K Biswas

  Part-I
  Blazing Bullets greeted Dalit Merit!
  An English daily, February 28, 2012 dateline Chandigarh, reported a chilling incident under the caption, “Upper caste boys kill boy from lower caste for ‘topping class’”. That efflorescence of talent and excellence could bring in its train a tragedy so tormenting in dimension is not only shocking but unbelievable also. However, this is the truth. Merit does invite blazing bullets in India, if it does not manifest itself in the comely social (…)

• Are there Limits to Bahujan Politics?

  14 April 2012

  by K.S. CHALAM
  The recent election results in five States, particularly in the largest State of India, Uttar Pradesh, induced political pundits to make different conjectures. One important message, according to some, is that UP is becoming another Tamil Nadu, making the national parties redundant in State politics. This may be a farfetched hypothesis that needs serious empirical study following Indian approaches of understanding a local phenomenon. It is also pointed out that the Bahujan (…)