Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• China and India — A Comparative Study of Economic Growth

  14 April 2012, by P R Dubhashi

  BOOK REVIEW
  Awakening Giants – Feet of Clay: Assessing the Economic Rise of China and India by Pranab Bardhan; Princeton University Press; 2010; cloth: $ 25.95 (£17.95).
  The rapid rate of economic growth in the two large countries of Asia – China and India – stands in striking contrast to the Western world’s developed countries’ feeble growth rate. The dis-appointing growth rate was compounded by recession which struck in the USA in 2008 and spread to the countries of Europe. They are (…)

• A Pakistani Compares—Hindus in Sindh with Muslims in UP

  14 April 2012, by T J S George

  DEMOCRACY’S DYNAMICS
  This week I happily yield space to a thinker from Pakistan. He has analysed recent events in a refreshing way, reminding us that behind the terrorist minority that has hijacked Pakistan, there is a sober majority that dreams of progress and the warmth of the human spirit.
  Tahir Mehdi works with the Punjab Lok Sujag, a research and advocacy group focusing on the governance and democracy. He is a blogger who appears in Dawn, Jinnah’s newspaper. The newness of his (…)

• Dawn Over Burma?

  13 April 2012, by SC

  In the midst of the murky national developments—capped by the sensational report of the movement of two Army units in the direction of the Capital without any notification (that invited a chorus of denials from the PM, Defence Minister, Defence Secretary, Ministry of Defence to the Army)—as well as major international events—like the US decision to slap a $10 million bounty on terror-mastermind and founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed—the most heartening news of recent times (…)

• Oldest Communist Party elects a New General Secretary

  13 April 2012

  COMMENTARY
  The Communist Party of India, the oldest Communist Party in the country whose birth took place in Kanpur in December 1925, has held its Twentyfirst Congress in Patna. The CPI-M, which surfaced much later in October 1964 and whose founders decided to advertise their Marxist credentials in the name of the party in order to differentiate it from the parent organisation, is currently holding its Twentieth Congress in Kerala’s Kozhikode.
  Just before the Twentyfirst Congress, the (…)

• Defence Preparedness: Learning from the Past

  13 April 2012, by S G Vombatkere

  Leaked Letter
  The media is full of Army Chief General V.K. Singh writing to the PM that India’s Army is unprepared for war in terms of weapons, ammunition and equipment. This is undoubtedly extremely serious. That the communication was leaked is even more serious. It is vital to find out who leaked that communication. It is unrealistic to interpret this leak as “retaliation” by a man frustrated at having lost his year-of-birth case in the Supreme Court. Let us not imagine that the General (…)

• A Dangerous Turn

  13 April 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  An ominous stage has been reached in Indian politics—a danger signal for our democracy. By the amazing folly of the government, the former Chief of the Army Staff has been dragged to the centre-stage of a nationwide controversy over a magnum size bribery in which the Prime Minister and people in his immediate proximity inescapably figure.
  General Sundarji’s bombshell disclosure in an interview to India Today about the Prime Minister’s refusal to turn the screw on the (…)

• Mishra or Yeddyurappa, it’s the Same Game: Parties Live for Today, Ignore Tomorrow

  13 April 2012, by T J S George

  Not all High Commands are the same. The originator of the system in India, Indira Gandhi, enforced it with shock and awe. Congressmen, however exalted, were trained to see their High Command the way vassals see their master. Only one Chief Minister, the late Rajasekhara Reddy, could do things without trembling before the High Command. Even he kept up pretences, never publicly defying the almighties.
  The BJP is a party with a difference. Nobody trembles before the High Command. Many (…)

• Inside Pakistan

  13 April 2012, by Kuldip Nayar

  Pakistan has changed in some ways since my last visit one year ago. Terrorism is absent from most parts of the country. Punjab has not experienced even a single incident in the last 15 months or so. Above all, terrorism is no more a topic in any discussion. I did not see any armed security person on the streets of Lahore. Still people do feel uneasy and even insecure, but appear to have reconciled to the circumstances and conditions.
  In the same way, the Taliban do not figure in the daily (…)

• India-Pakistan: Advocating Accommodation

  13 April 2012

  by ALI AHMED
  What to make of Pakistan is up to its 180 million citizens. However, what they make of Pakistan is consequential to its neighbours. Therefore, if India wants Pakistan to go along a certain direction, then it must go down the route ‘with’ Pakistan.
  India wants the dividend of a democratic peace, which means getting Pakistan to take the right choices away from extremism and military dominance. India has not succeeded so far. This owes to the internal political complexion of (…)

• Subterfuge and Lies Spelling Doom for the Congress

  13 April 2012, by Diptendra Raychaudhuri

  The Age of Brazening Out
  It was a sunny morning in Delhi, just a couple of hours through an interesting day of counting of votes polled in five States, including UP. As the first trends of the election started pouring in, a Congress leader with a not-so-trustworthy track-record appeared on a national channel to break the secret: the High Command would soon take a final call on whom to ally with, SP or BSP.
  That the Congress was secretly toying with such ideas was not unknown to the (…)