Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Is the Congress a Carbon Copy of the BJP?

  27 March 2012, by Kuldip Nayar

  Numbers are important in a parliamentary system and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assertion that he has them should be assuring to the ruling Congress. After its debacle in the State elections of UP and Punjab, the party’s anxiety is understan-dable.
  Yet the annoyance by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee can reduce the numbers. Her Trinamul Congress party has 19 members in the Lok Sabha. She has already given a notice for amendment in the presidential address which mentioned the (…)

• Beware of the Invasion!

  27 March 2012, by D. Bandyopadhyay

  This is not the marauding army of a Nadir Shah or Genghis Khan debauching into the plains of Punjab after crossing the Khyber Pass and the river Indus and its tributaries. Compared to the lethal effects of the impending invasion, the destructive power of those armies was negligible. They excelled in savagery, brutality and cruelty; but as they did not have any weapon of mass destruction, their damaging capabilities were limited compared to those at present. This invasion is already on though (…)

• Economic Ideas of Lohia: Some Aspects

  27 March 2012, by Anil Kumar Jain, Parul Gupta

  (March 23 this year marks the 102nd birth anniversary of that stormy petrel of Indian politics, Socialist leader Rammanohar Lohia. On this occasion we remember him by carrying the following articles.)
  Introduction
  Dr Rammanohar Lohia (March 23, 1910-October 12, 1967) was one of the most original and self-reflective thinkers of India, a man of action and a freedom fighter who participated in the Satyagraha Movement at the age of ten. He was gentle in manner and wore a unostentatious and (…)

• Need to Remember Jaipal Singh

  27 March 2012

  COMMUNICATION
  A.K. Biswas, in his article, “Jaipal Singh Munda”, had provided many unknown facets of Jaipal Singh (Mainstream, Vol 50, No. 9, February 10-14, 2012), whom I consider the real successor to Birsa Munda, a freedom fighter. The grateful people of Bihar had established an agricultural university in his name in Ranchi, the heartland of the Adivasis. My generation knows Jaipal Singh not only as the captain of the Indian Olympic Hockey team, but also as one of the tallest leaders of (…)

• Summons for the Global Community: Perceptions of Lohia on Caste and Gender

  27 March 2012

  MANISHA MISHRA
  “…. It is impossible to impart vigour to the country’s politics unless the uneducated are given a proper place in the leadership”. —Rammanohar Lohia1
  March 23, 2012 marks the 102nd birth anniversary of that legend of Indian politics, who had dedicated his whole life for the emancipation of the disadvantaged and marginalised classes. On this occasion, there has been a renewed political curiosity and awareness about the versatile personality of Rammanohar Lohia, the depth of (…)

• India-Russia-China Pipeline: A Tribute to BRICS

  27 March 2012

  SANJAY DESHPANDE and MANENDRA SAHU
  The twentyfirst century is witnessing a slow shift in power from the West to the East. The fast growth in ‘emerging economies’ like Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, commonly referred to as BRICS, is responsible for this change. The growth in these economies is taking place when the nations of Europe are still struggling to come out of the 2008 economic meltdown. In the days ahead, the group of BRICS is going to become much stronger. A close (…)

• Refreshing Analysis of Coalition Governments in the Current Scenario

  27 March 2012

  BOOK REVIEW
  PREETPAL SINGH
  Dynamics of Party System and Coalition Governments in India by Ranpal Singh and Tejvir Singh (eds.); Alfa Publications, New Delhi; 2012; pp. XVIII + 143; Rs 700.
  The Constitution-makers had set up a parliamentary system of government in India. But that needed a two-party system. Hence, the Single-Ballot-Simple-Majority System had been introduced instead of the Proportional Representation System to ensure the same. But the historic role of the Congress in the (…)

• There’s Writing on the Wall for Dynasties; will the Desirable Meet the Possible?

  27 March 2012, by T J S George

  In our elections, nobody is voted in; always somebody is voted out and somebody else steps into the vacancy by default.
  This was the pattern since the Emergency. Indira Gandhi was so dictatorial during those two years that she was thrown out humiliatingly. The Janata Party then took office, but performed so miserably that it could last only two years. In the 1980 election people threw out that lot. And who came in? The only available alternative, Indira Gandhi.
  More graphic is the (…)

• Where Should Higher Education Reform Begin?

  27 March 2012

  COMMUNICATION
  NAYA BIHAR—DAWN OF A NEW ERA
  On carefully reading of the article captioned, “New Questions in Naya Bihar: The Cry of Vernacular Academics” (Mainstream, Vol L, No 10, February 25, 2012) by Dev N. Pathak, I feel a genuine urge to place on record my personal experience. The author’s pointed reference to the eminence and sarcasm of Prof Nawal Kishor Chaudhury of the Department of Economics at a two-day national seminar is indeed interesting.
  “I wonder whether Nitish Kumar is (…)

• UPA in the Grip of a Fresh Crisis

  20 March 2012, by SC

  The ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is in the grip of a fresh crisis with West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee slamming her party’s nominee in the Union Cabinet, Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi, for having taken in his maiden Railway Budget the first initiative in 10 years at “fare rationalisation”—making train fares 10-20 per cent higher for all classes according to the distance being travelled, the “fare rationali-sation” models in two forms enabling the Railways to earn Rs 4000 crores (…)