Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Pandit Nehru and his View of History

  21 November 2011

  by VIVEK KUMAR SRIVASTAVA
  Pandit Nehru not only created history but also studied it in the analytical-comprehensive mode. His intellectualism had much to owe to his study of history. He viewed history as a tool to understand the secrets of human civilisation and its growth. He developed this tool as a basic platform which could yield answers to many of the unanswered questions of human existence. He studied history in a wider context. “He believed in the study of history as an effective (…)

• Indira Gandhi and Third World

  21 November 2011, by C Raghavan

  (On November 19, falls Indira Gandhi’s ninetyfourth birth anniversary. On this occasion we reproduce the following article by a veteran journalist based in Geneva. He was the Chief of the Geneva Bureau of the Inter press Third World News Service. This article appeared in Mainstream (November 17, 1984) less than a month after our third PM’s tragic assassination.)
  Indira Gandhi died as she lived—courageous and fighting.
  However she is judged at home on her domestic record, in the Third (…)

• South Block: Time for Reorientation

  21 November 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  Whatever explanation may be trotted out by the External Affairs Ministry, there is no escape from the fact that the country has suffered a humiliating defeat in the race for a non-permanent member seat in the UN Security Council.
  There will be pundits who will ascribe the poor Indian score to our refusal to sign the CTBT which the government rightly decided for the country. This school of thought seems to argue that had India voted for the CTBT, the US would have (…)

• Reviving Universal PDS: A Step Towards Food Security

  21 November 2011, by Suranjita Ray

  An unprecedented economic growth during the last decade has also seen increasing malnutrition, hunger and starvation amongst certain sections of society. India ranks 66 in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) World Hunger Index of 88 countries (Inter-national Food Policy Research Institute). More than 200 million people in this country are denied the right to food. One-third of all underweight children (57 million) in the world due to lack of adequate nutrition are in India. It (…)

• An Open Letter to the Chief Minister of West Bengal

  21 November 2011

  To
  The Chief Minister
  Government of West Bengal
  Kolkata
  Madam,
  Last week some of us who signed here sent an open appeal to you requesting you to personally initiate the process of opening a dialogue with the Maoists as that, in our opinion, was the only way out to resolve differences with those who are the sons and daughters of our soil, and not our enemies. We also emphasised that the issue was not at all a law-and-order problem, but rooted in socio-economic deprivation and hence (…)

• Unjustified Aggressiveness!

  21 November 2011, by D. Bandyopadhyay

  My attention was drawn to “An Open Letter to the Chief Minister of West Bengal” which was signed by thirty members of the civil society of Kolkata and Delhi. What disturbed me was the tone and tenor of the language used in the letter in denouncing Ms Mamata Banerjee’s bold initiative in inviting the Maoists of Junglemahal for a dialogue after “ceasefire”.
  May I ask with all humility who among the Chief Ministers of the 12 Left-wing extremism-affected States took the initiative in this (…)

• Statement on Peaceful Dialogue in Junglemahal

  21 November 2011

  We, the concerned citizens, feel deeply disturbed by the continued acrimony, tension and violence in the Junglemahal area of West Bengal. After the change of government in the State it was hoped that a dialogue between the new government and the Maoists in the Junglemahal would commence which would address the real problems affecting the people of the area and lead to their solution. This would set an example for dealing with the situation prevailing in the Left-wing extremist affected areas (…)

• A Statement in Neocolonialism

  21 November 2011

  BOOK REVIEW
  by RITA NATH KESHARI
  The Golden Island by Hrusikesh Panda, (English translation: Lipipuspa Nayak); Pakshighar Prakashani; Bhubaneswar; pp. 184; 2011; Rs 200.
  The Golden Island is the English translation of Subarnadweepa, an Odia novel by Hrushikesh Panda, a writer with more than twenty works. The original Odia was published in 1994, the year India went for globalisation of the economy.
  Set in an imaginary tiny country, the Golden Island, the novel trails the sad fate (…)

• I am the Electronic Media

  21 November 2011, by Badri Raina

  America, as you might know, has the Rifle Association. Nobody, but nobody, Republican or Democrat, may touch it. For the reason that the USP of American democracy is that an American citizen, preferably all White, may fire away at any real or imagined threat to the safety of his person or property. The American Constitution, good Republicans think, was drafted with the singular purpose of ensuring this right, both at home and abroad.
  Well, India now has her own answer to this. (…)

• The Alchemy of Change

  21 November 2011, by Uttam Sen

  Several pertinent issues came to the surface in Press Council Chairman Justice Marakandey Katju’s interview with Karan Thapar and its effects, notably well-argued pieces, among them Siddharth Bhatia’s analysis in The Asian Age (“Justice Katju’s remarks not wide of the mark”, November 3, 2011). A tweet said: “Most of the articles opposing Justice Katju’s interview actually end up proving whatever he said about the media…”, for example, a headline wondered “Has Justice Katju been appointed by (…)