Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Tribute to Dr Rajbahadur Gour

  8 November 2011, by Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy

  With the passing away of Dr Rajbahadur Gour, one of the heroes of the Telangana armed struggle, one of the last links of the present generation with the past in the Hyderabad state has snapped. Comrade Raj, as he was popularly known in Hyderabad, was 94 when he breathed his last on October 7.
  Raj was born in a middle class Kayasth family in the Old City of Hyderabad. His ancestors migrated from the Faizabad district of UP and settled in Hyderabad. Raj belonged to the third generation (…)

• Guiding Principles for Acquisition of Land by the Government

  8 November 2011, by Syed Shahabuddin

  The draft Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill 2011, introduced in the Lok Sabha on November 7, 2011, stands referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development. The Committee invited views and suggestions from the public but gave such a short time that it was not possible for interested individuals or organisations to submit detailed memoranda to the Committee.
  A first glance, however, shows that the draft Bill constitutes a great advance on the Act of (…)

• On the Ramayanas Affair

  8 November 2011, by Mukul Dube

  The Delhi University’s Academic Council decided, in the firt half of October 2011, to remove from its “concurrent course in history” for all BA (Hons) students, A.K. Ramanujan’s essay “Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation”. At the direction of the Supreme Court in July 2010, four experts had been asked to give their views on the essay to the Academic Council. The opinion of only one of these experts went against the essay and led to the decision. (…)

• Realising Telangana State: Issues, Apprehensions and Hope

  8 November 2011

  by Madhusudan Bandi
  1. Context
  The closer a government to its people, the better it works is how Stigler (1957) defined effective governance. And the demand for ‘Telangana’, if looked purely from this theoretical perspective, appears to hold substance. It is the geographical and population-size that makes Telangana an ideal administrative unit befitting to be a State that would rank somewhere in the middle in the cluster of the 28 other States of India. However, the issue is not so (…)

• On Nikhil Chakravartty’s 98th Birth Anniversary

  8 November 2011

  November 3 this year marks Nikhil Chakravartty’s ninetyeighth birth anniversary. While remembering him on this occasion we are reproducing the following message sent to the Mainstream editor by Justice P.B. Sawant who was then the Chairman of the Press Council of India. This was published in the August 29, 1998 issue of this journal. We also reproduce the speech delivered by Justice Sawant at the inaugural session of a two-day seminar on the ‘Role of Media in Crisis Situations’ organised by (…)

• Role of Media in Crises Situations

  8 November 2011, by P.B. Sawant

  The role the media plays in crises situations depends upon the role it assigns to itself even in the normal situation. Does it look upon itself as a leader of the society? As a reformer? As a catalyst of change? Or as a mere messenger of news and views? Even as an informer, does it act as an independent communicator or is it influenced by some internal and external pressures and forces?
  Media’s role in any country depends largely upon the social, political, economic and legal conditions (…)

• Real Threat to Press Freedom

  8 November 2011, by Ajit Bhattacharjea

  As we come to the end of this two-day celebration of Press Day, I would like to join the other speakers in paying homage to Nikhil Chakravartty. Long before death took him away, he became a father figure for the press, always ready to help and give us the benefit of his mature advice. I remember with gratitude how, some months before his death, he quietly and without fuss or undue ceremony, donated his personal library to the Press Institute of India. He must have known the end was coming. (…)

• Open Letter to Pravda

  8 November 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS The following open letter to Pravda, the Soviet Communist Party’s daily organ, was written fortynine years ago by N.C. as an ‘Indian Marxist’ of 20 years’ membership of the Communist Party. It appeared in Mainstream (November 3, 1962). (It was on that day that he turned 49.) This was a reply to a Pravda editorial, published on October 25, 1962, recommending the Chinese terms for peace talks for India’s acceptance. It is being reproduced after fortynine years to once (…)

• Historic Significance of October Revolution

  8 November 2011, by Randhir Singh

  On November 7 this year falls the ninetyfourth anniversary of the historic October Revolution that changed the face of Russia and led to the birth of the USSR three years later. Remembering that Revolution we are reproducing excerpts from the chapter “Crisis of Socialism” in Prof Randhir Singh’s Five Lectures in Marxist Mode (published in 1993). These excerpts appeared fifteen years ago in Mainstream (November 9, 1996). Prof Randhir Singh is a distinguished teacher and a renowned Marxist (…)

• Asia - Pacific: Russia’s Evolving Strategy

  8 November 2011, by Benjamin Todd

  Striking a course distinctly different from its pro-West orientation as well as US and Europe-centric approach during Boris Yeltsin’s steward-ship of the country, Russia today is paying considerable attention to participation in the Asia-Pacific multilateral fora, for example, the East Asian Summit (EAS), Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC), Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Shangri-La Dialogue and ASEAN + Russia. International experts view this trend as (…)