Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• A Radiant Figure

  31 January 2012, by Jawaharlal Nehru

  On January 30 this year falls the sixtyfourth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. On this occasion we remember the Father of the Nation by reproducing excerpts from a piece that Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in homage to the pioneer of our freedom struggle three years after Gandhiji’s demise.
  What gods there are, I know not; and I am not concerned about them. But there are certain rare qualities which raise a man above the common herd and make him appear as though he were of different (…)

• No Walmart, Please

  31 January 2012, by Rajindar Sachar

  If the combined Opposition had sat down for weeks so as to find an issue to embarrass the UPA Government and make it a laughing stock before the whole country, they could not have thought of a better issue than the free gift presented to it by the UPA Government by initially insisting that it had irrevocably decided to allow the entry of multi-brand retail leader superstores like Walmart, USA and then, within a few days, withdrawing the proposal with a whimper.
  As it is, even initially (…)

• Belittling CAG Diminishes Parliament’s Effectiveness

  31 January 2012, by B P Mathur

  The Comptroller and Auditor General’s Report on the 2G Spectrum has created a great deal of controversy and his role is being questioned. The Public Accounts Committee could not finalise its report due to the splitting on the issue on party lines. The JPC currently examining the matter has taken an unprecedented step of taking evidence of a junior officer of the CAG’s set up, since retired, and quizzed the CAG about the manner of calculating the loss in the deal. It has asked the Finance (…)

• Swami Vivekananda: An Iconoclastic Saint

  31 January 2012, by Ajeet Jawed

  Bengal has produced a galaxy of prophets, poets, philosophers and patriots who, by their rare intellect, devotion and dedication for their motherland and compassion for humanity, have made India proud. One amongst them is Narendranath Dutta, whom we all know as Swami Vivekananda. He was born on January 12, 1863 and died on July 4, 1902, at the age of 39 years, five months and 24 days. In such a short span of life, he immensely contributed to rousing Indians not only against the foreign rule (…)

• Is Tradition Reactionary?

  31 January 2012, by Ashok Celly

  Tradition and modernity are supposed to be contraries: the former is seen as upholder of the existing order and inimical to all progress; the latter conducive to change thus leading to a more just and humane social order. The former is conservative, the latter progressive. The Hindu tradition, for instance, is supposed to be the upholder of the caste system—Manuvadi as the contemporary political lexicon has it. But is it really so? If we have a dispassionate look at the past, we may be in (…)

• The People are Not Always Right

  31 January 2012, by Lalit Uniyal

  The people are not always right, even though they usually are.
  i. Socrates was sentenced to death in a direct democracy by popular vote in a popular jury. He was the greatest man Athens ever produced and was unquestionably one of the noblest men of all time.
  ii. Similarly, the Treaty of Versailles was a link in the chain of events that led to the decline of the great civilisation of Europe, indeed its near-destruction. Yet that insane Treaty was made under pressure of public opinion in (…)

• Restore Indo-Pak Friendship, Fight Global Hegemonism, Support Peoples’ Resistance

  31 January 2012

  DOCUMENT
  ALLAHABAD DECLARATION OF EIGHTH JOINT CONVENTION OF PIPFPD
  The following is the Declaration adopted at the conclusion of the Eighth Joint Convention of Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) held in Allahabad (December 29-31, 2011). More than 190 delegates from Pakistan attended the Convention.
  We, the delegates of the Eighth Joint Convention of the Pakistan ‘India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD), held in Allahabad from December 29 to (…)

• Muslim Demand for Political Empowerment

  31 January 2012, by Syed Shahabuddin

  My purpose of this article is not to scratch the countless wounds, received since independence, nor to recite old grievances, but basically a fresh endeavour to achieve social justice in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and to make a new beginning.
  Introduction
  SOCIAL JUSTICE has many aspects including sharing power, due benefits for every social group in the development that the country is making, part-nership in governance and thus in the utilisation of its natural (…)

• Nixon’s Tattered Flag

  31 January 2012, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  [More than forty years ago N.C. wrote the following piece just before Bangladesh’s liberation from west Pakistan’s oppressive and exploitative yoke and it was published in Mainstream (December 18, 1971). Immediately after that country’s independence. We are reproducing it as it is of inestimable value in the present context.]
  Professor Galbraith in his journal narrates an experience as the US Ambassador in this country: “One man asked if there were still a Dulles (…)

• Whither CPI-M?

  31 January 2012

  TRIBUTE On December 28, 2011 passed away in Kolkata veteran Marxist ideologue and noted CPI intellectual Professor Narahari Kaviraj, 95. He was born on February 17, 1917 at Nabadwip in West Bengal’s Nadia district in a family of scholars. He is survived by his only son, Sudipta, an internationally renowned scholar and political scientist, currently holding the departmental Chair at Columbia University’s Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department.
  In his academic life (…)