Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• March to Panjim

  27 December 2011

  by RAZA ALI
  Panjim, December 21—The lush, luxuriant wild beauty that is Goa has risen and gripped our entire country these days in a close embrace, as it were.
  The story of the triumphant march of our Army to bring Goa back home is known already. But close upon the heels of our Army, a bare six hours behind the advancing line, was a batch of people from places near and faraway from Goa, who had found their way to Panjim to celebrate Goa’s liberation together with the Goanese and our own (…)

• Indo Pak War of 1971 - Some Not-so-public Facts

  27 December 2011, by Rajindar Sachar

  The recently declassified documents of the 1971 war between India and Pakistan have without any doubt established the fact of the absolute tilt of US President Nixon and Kissinger against India.
  This hostile aggressive stand taken by Nixon was sought to be justified under the false premise that Indira Gandhi was right from the beginning determined to attack East Bengal. This, however, was a lie and Nixon, above all the people, knew that on the other hand she had tried her best to avoid (…)

• Lines on the Massacres in East Pakistan, March 1971

  27 December 2011, by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

  This is how my sorrow became visible: in dust, piling up for years in my heart, finally reached my eyes, the bitterness now so clear that I had to listen when my friends told me to wash my eyes with blood Everything at once was tangled in blood--- each face, each idol, red everywhere. Blood swept over the sun, washing away its gold. The moon erupted with blood, its silver extinguished. The sky promised a morning of blood, and the night wept only blood.... Let it flow. Should it be dammed (…)

• New Stature, New Tasks | Meaning of Mujib

  27 December 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  Both India and Bangladesh have on December 16 this year befittingly observed and celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the liberation, with New Delhi’s generous and unstinted assistance, of what was known as East Pakistan from the exploitative and oppressive West Pakistani yoke. On this occasion we are carrying two pieces by N.C. that appeared in Mainstream soon after Dhaka’s emancipation from Islamabad’s brutal rule. The first piece appeared as ‘Political Notebook’ (…)

• Looking Back on December 16, 1971

  27 December 2011

  by SUKHARANJAN SENGUPTA
  Anticipating the imminent fall of Dacca and the surrender of nearly a lakh of Pakistani troops to the Indian Army at any moment, my photographer colleague Ganesh and I (both of us were representing the Bengali daily Jugantar) left Calcutta for Silchar in Assam on December 15, 1971.
  From Silchar we proceeded to Agartala, Tripura’s capital, which was one of the main operational theatres of the Indian armed forces to help liberate tens of millions of (…)

• Memories of Bangladesh Liberation War

  27 December 2011, by Barun Das Gupta

  The Beginning...
  The Bangladesh liberation war started in the night of March 25/26, 1971. I was working as a reporter for Patriot at Gauhati (Guwahati was still not the spelling). On March 30 or April 1, I got instructions from my Delhi office to go immediately to ’some place close to the Indo-Bangla border’ and report what was happening. I decided to go to Karimganj. A journalist friend of mine, Sachin Barooah, also joined in.
  We flew to Silchar where another local journalist, Shantanu (…)

• From Tirupati to Pashupati: Some Reflections on the Maoist Issue

  27 December 2011

  by JAIRAM RAMESH
  I
  I am not just privileged but also truly humbled to be part of this prestigious lecture series launched a half-century and six years ago by none other than C. Rajagopalachari. Many distinguished personalities have preceded me and this makes me feel all the more honoured to be here this evening.
  To say anything about such an indomitable colossus as Sardar Patel, one of our Founding Fathers, would be gratuitous. Often referred to as the “Iron Man” and as the “Bismarck (…)

• Peace-talk Process in Junglemahal

  27 December 2011

  by SUJATO BHADRA
  From 2001, the people of West Bengal began to acknowledge—albeit slowly—that in the remote areas of three districts, namely, West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia (traditionally considered as the most backward districts), the Maoists (in local popular parlance "Bon [Forest]” party) had been a political force to reckon with. Sporadic arrests, regular raids in villages for nabbing the Maoists and various kinds of human rights violations became the regular feature. Human rights (…)

• Failed Peace Process between Mamata and Maoists: A Post-mortem

  27 December 2011

  by BISWAJIT ROY
  “It began as a tenacious essay in political realism, entered a phase of sheer drama unbelievable in its unreality, and ended in the bitter rattle of gunfire. The reference is to the ‘talks’ between Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s government in Andhra Pradesh and the Naxalites (2004).” —K. Balagopal, Economic and Political Weekly, March 26, 2005
  With Maoist top-gun Kishenji’s killing in an encounter, fake or genuine, the peace process between the CPI (Maoist) and Mamata Banerjee (…)

• Agonising Reappraisal of Liberalisation and Globalisation

  27 December 2011, by P R Dubhashi

  The year 1991 marked a watershed, almost a U-turn, in the Indian economic policy pursued over forty years from 1951 to 1991, often described as a Nehruvian model of economic policy. The major features of that model included what came to be known as the ’socialist pattern’ of society, a planned economy, emphasis on public sector enterprises and heavy industries which were expected to gain the commanding heights of the economy, autarky, import substitution and self-reliance. The new economic (…)