Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Anna and his Critics

  28 September 2011

  by Bagwat Prasad
  Anna and his team are great crusaders against corruption. Maoists want systemic change. Anna’s team aims at intensifying Indian democracy in tune with the spirit of the Constitution, reflected in the Preamble. The Hindu in its editorial (29.8.2011) writes: “In India, unlike in Britain, Parliament is not supreme. Constitution is.” Maoists want to overthrow the Constitution. The Jan Lokapal Bill of Team Anna serves the cause of democratic decentralisation and vigilance by (…)

• Hazare, Indian State and Civil Society

  28 September 2011

  by Umakant
  ‘End justifies the means’ is a Brahmanical fallacy that must be discarded for the sake of logic itself. Fanaticism of all kinds needs to be shunned at all cost or else democracy may be endangered. 43 years, eight Lokpal Bills under seven Prime Minister and no consensus tells us a lot about the level of consciousness in our society on the need to fight corruption of several kinds. The current Lokpal Bill is the ninth attempt and quite interestingly three other versions have (…)

• Interrogating State and Civil Society on Malkangiri Abduction

  28 September 2011, by Kamalakanta Roul

  Introduction
  Corporate socialism and stashed black money are two tentacles of the neo-liberal mascot of the Indian state. It has owed little responsibility in regard to ensuring development for all, especially the poor and marginalised sections. The emergence of the global competitive market economy widens the huge gap between the urban-rural, poor-rich and state-society relations. It escalates the militant menace in the corporate corridors of the mineral-rich Adivasi courtyard. The (…)

• Electoral Results Unlearnt

  28 September 2011, by Sharad Patil

  [The following article had reached us quite sometime back but could not be used earlier due to unavoidable reasons. —Editor]
  The present plight of the communist and Dalit movements brings to mind a Mahabharatan myth. Brhadratha, the king of the rajaka Magadha state, was sonless. He got a fertility fruit from a sage, which he gave to both of his queens. They delivered the halves of an infant. Furiously they were thrown on a dung heap. The mother-goddess Jara saw it and joined them. And (…)

• Afghanistan: Need for Decisive, Collective Action

  28 September 2011, by Mansoor Ali

  One basic aspect of the international approach to Afghanistan has been the tendency to devise strategy, take decisions and organise ground operations in a way that the Afghans perceive to be disrespectful towards them and even on occasions smacking of arrogance. At times they also take legitimate offence at the manner in which their country was being treated—their feeling of Afghanistan being regarded as a no-man’s land and not a sovereign state is not without basis. It is this perceived (…)

• Recalling 9/11 in US and 2002 in Gujarat

  23 September 2011, by SC

  The tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the United States was befittingly observed on September 11 this year with the leaders of the country, headed by President Barack Obama, poignantly dedicating at New York’s Ground Zero, where 10 years ago stood the Twin Towers, an appropriate memorial to the 2749 persons who perished there in the worst terror attack in the citadel of the industrialised West. The families of the dead gathered not only at Ground Zero but also in Washington (…)

• Indo-Bangladesh Relations — Failure of Leadership on the Indian Side

  23 September 2011, by Muchkund Dubey

  The attitude of most of Indian political leaders, senior officials, business magnates and strategic thinkers towards Bangladesh has been one of disdain and apathy. Very few of these people either understand the dynamics of the domestic politics of Bangladesh or have grasped the full import of Indo-Bangladesh relations. The most glaring example recently of the abysmal ignorance of Bangladesh’s politics was the Indian Prime Minister’s remark towards the end of June 2011 that 25 per cent of the (…)

• UID Aadhaar as if People Matter

  23 September 2011, by S G Vombatkere

  Media Reports
  The UID Aadhaar project planning and system design shortcomings and security risks at the national (or macro) level have been discussed elsewhere.1 The present article views the Aadhaar project at the system operational level, with practical considerations based on observed and probable functioning at the service delivery end.
  Consider the following report in a local daily, The Mysore Bugle:
  Food riots: PDS outlet vandalised
  Mysore: August 2, 2015—The PDS outlet in (…)

• Rahul Gandhi Needs to Learn from Mahatma Gandhi’s Precepts

  23 September 2011, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  PEOPLE ARE SUPREME: PARLIAMENT MUST WORK UNDER PEOPLE’S PRESSURE
  Last fortnight, despite countrywide popular support for Anna Hazare’s Jana Lokpal demand, some MPs of the ruling coalition started saying that Parliament is supreme, that parliamentary procedures cannot be shortened or expedited to meet emergencies and that trying to do this would mean undermining the democratic process. According to newspaper reports, “Rahul Gandhi underscored the supremacy of Parliament over street (…)

• Reading Anna’s Politics of Anti-politics

  23 September 2011

  by ARUP SEN
  The eminent political philosopher, Giorgio Agamben, drew our attention to the “protracted eclipse” of politics today. This happens, argued Agamben, because “politics” failed to confront the transformations that gradually “emptied out its categories and concepts”.1
  Many political commentators have recently raised questions about the legitimacy of parliamentary politics in India in the context of the Anna Hazare movement. Pratap Bhanu Mehta argues that the singular achievement (…)