Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• On Death(s): Mapping the Public Culture of Death in India

  19 February 2012

  by SRABANI RAI CHAUDHURI
  The multiple connections between human lives and political affairs have been well-explored in the writings of almost every political philosopher or thinker we are familiar with.
  What is politics? What is the art of politics for? What is it meant to do? What is it all about? What are the innumerable ways in which politics seeps into the lives of human beings? How do men create, interpret and further the political objectives which tacitly or explicitly gird their (…)

• Dalai Lama on Secular Ethics, Opening China’s Mind for its Own Future

  19 February 2012, by Sagari Chhabra

  In the struggle over a homeland, how have you managed to keep six million Tibetans completely non-violent?
  Before Buddhism, Tibet was all tribes using the sword and horse. Then Buddhism reached—the whole way of life changed. But Tibetans from the beginning respect life, even that of insects. Non-violence of thought and action is a Tibetan tradition. Tibetan culture is one of peace and compassion. So, the Tibetan community is carrying out that tradition. Inside Tibet, there’s constant fear, (…)

• Frontal Attack on Democratic Values

  14 February 2012, by SC

  As the campaign for the Assembly elections in the poll-bound States, especially UP, gathers increasing momentum with political leaders of all parties of consequence in these provinces trading charges against each other and making tall promises to woo the electorate, several judicial pronouncements have attracted national attention.
  First came the Supreme Court’s landmark judgment of January 31 upholding the private citizen’s right to seek sanction for prosecution of a public servant for (…)

• Which Way, Dushanbe?

  14 February 2012, by Bashir Mohammad

  Central Asia has for quite sometime now become the arena for a new Great Game involving Russia, the US and China. Such players like India close to the region as well as neighbouring Pakistan and Iran frequently fail to keep pace with the fast changing manoeuvres of the main protagonists that leave considerable impact on the regional capitals.
  Let’s take the case of the Ayni air base in Tajikistan. New Delhi has invested a lot of money and expertise in modernising this military facility (…)

• Nature of the Broad International Solidarity Movement with the Indian People

  14 February 2012

  by JAN MYRDAL
  The following are excerpts from the speech delivered by the reputed Swedish Communist writer, well known for his support to peoples’ movements the world over, at a public meeting, held under the aegis of the Forum Against War on People, at New Delhi on February 6, 2012.
  Dear friends,
  I want to say something on the international solidarity movement with the people of India.
  We are here because there is an ongoing war against the people of India by the Indian state (…)

• The Boisterous UP Election Scene

  14 February 2012

  by ATUL KUMAR THAKUR
  Had Uttar Pradesh been a country, it would have been more populous than as many as 170 countries and if by choice it was a democracy, it would have been the fourth largest democratic nation. However, it’s equally true that with its horrific fundamental indices, this imaginative nation would have been the most terrible democracy of the world against all the whims and fancies of political analysts. The past two decades of downgraded politics have turned India’s most (…)

• Mid-Term Monetary Policy Review: The Way Ahead

  14 February 2012, by Anshuman Gupta

  In a sovereign state, the economy is regulated largely by the monetary and fiscal policies. Their roles increase in significance even more in a market economy, where there is no scope for direct controls. There is always a need for the judicious coordination of both the policies for achieving the desired optimal results. However, in reality this is not always the case. More often than not the political economy decides which tool should be used more in proportion and it is invariably the (…)

• Global Capital, Compliant Nation-States and Totalitarian Communities

  14 February 2012

  by RAVI SINHA
  The following is the keynote address on “Global Hegemonium and Challenges to Democratic Rights” delivered by the author, a physicist by training and Left-wing activist by choice, at the Eighth Joint Convention of the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) at Allahabad (December 29-31, 2011).
  I must begin by expressing my gratitude to the organisers of this Convention and to this Forum for the opportunity and the honour you have given me by letting me (…)

• The Untold Story of US Retreat from Iraq

  14 February 2012, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The plot was believed to be as follows: Washington wanted to keep long-term US military presence in Iraq but the popular opinion in Iraq militated against it, which ultimately left the Barack Obama Administration no choice but to comply with the Status of Forces Agreement [SOFA] and to withdraw all the troops by the stipulated deadline of December 2011.
  The US of course has given the spin that the withdrawal has been of its own accord. And the Republicans have been berating Obama for not (…)

• Judicial Activism, Right or Wrong

  14 February 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  When politicians as a community are in a state of siege in the eyes of the public, it is extremely short-sighted on the part of any government to make any move that may appear to the public as a means to cover up or to close the channels of the politician’s exposure.
  While in the public mind, corruption among politicians has become a live issue since the Bofors bribery scandal, it was during Narasimha Rao’s Prime Ministership that the enormity of corruption in (…)