Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Debating Anna Hazare

  13 September 2011

  On August 27, 2011, The Telegraph newspaper published an article on Anna Hazare by Ramachandra Guha under the title “A Patriarch for the Nation”. The article sparked a debate between the author and the social worker, Lalit Uniyal. The debate is reproduced below for several reasons. The dialogue is without artifice; it grew naturally. Marxists might perceive an instance of the dialectic in operation, thesis to synthesis. Younger scholars might discover a model of courtesy in debate. And, (…)

• Some Disturbing Thoughts

  13 September 2011, by Humra Quraishi

  Jolt for the government of the day. Rattled it is. Perhaps, trying its best to avoid a full fledged uprising to take off, much in keeping with what was witnessed at Egypt’s Tahrir Square. And here, as the build-up seems simmering, isn’t it time to grasp and sense the rather obvious political shades gathering around this momentum. There’s that lurking danger of political lobbies intruding and puncturing the very purpose. Also, whether three drafts are presented (the government’s, Team Anna’s (…)

• Why Anger Against Civil Society?

  13 September 2011

  by A.K. VERMA
  That the government should have turned down Team Anna’s draft on the Lokpal Bill and pushed him to protest is quite understandable. Anna’s desire to fast at Jantar Mantar, and the government’s pre-empting the same by imposing Section 144 all over Delhi, and suggesting some insignificant place for the fast with ceiling on the number of people who can join the fast was a clear indication of some panic driven anger on the part of the government. But, should the government show (…)

• Allround Decadence and Ray of Hope

  13 September 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  While there is no doubt a lot on which to attack those in authority for their dereliction in running an orderly system of governance, one has to ask at the same time why there has been such an appalling deterioration in social conscience in most of our public activity. In other words, the corrosion of values in public life is not confined to Ministers and top bureaucrats, but has become all-pervasive, the pollution of morals seem to choke out public service.
  If we (…)

• Remembering R.S. Sharma : Some Reflections

  13 September 2011, by P.C. Joshi

  TRIBUTE
  In the passing away of R.S. Sharma the discipline of history has lost its leading, living representative of the older generation, of the same quality and stature as D.D. Kosambi and Sushobhan Sarkar.
  D.D. Kosambi, however, was perhaps a lone scholar and researcher of exceptional calibre but confined mainly to a scholar’s ivory tower. Only in his later years did he turn into a leading promoter of the world peace movement. Sushobhan Sarkar was primarily a teacher of history having (…)

• Pakistan Failed Jinnah

  13 September 2011, by Ajeet Jawed

  On September 11 this year falls Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s sixtythird death anniversary. The following article is being published on that occasion. There are a few figures in the history of the world who can be put in both a positive and a negative frame. Mohammad Ali Jinnah is one of them. He is both revered and hated, and admired and cursed, by the vast masses of the subcontinent.
  For forty years of his political career, he fought for the freedom of India. In those days he was proud to be (…)

• Speaking the Libyan Mind

  13 September 2011, by Uttam Sen

  A voice that informs several themes, at least in debate, is that of the Libyan novelist, Hisham Matar. Though an obvious empathiser of the anti-Gaddafi rebels, he has enunciated the idea of change in universal terms: “For the first time in our history the idea of democracy is a real, tangible idea, not a fairy tale. Revolutions aren’t about negative objectives, about simply getting rid of people. They are about discovering who we are; and what it means to be Libyans.” Gaddafi might have “got (…)

• The Endless War: America, Afghanistan, and the War on Terrorism

  13 September 2011, by Eddie J Girdner

  REVIEW ARTICLE Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid; Viking, New York; 2008; Maps, Glossary of Terms, Notes, Bibliography, Index.
  America has now been in Afghanistan for ten years. Again, America has triumphed. Again, America has failed. Again, countries have been saved. Again, countries have been destroyed. Again, people have been freed. Again, people have been crushed, and maimed, and (…)

• Afghanistan: NATO Defeat and New US Game-Plan

  13 September 2011, by Bashir Mohammad

  The political situation in Afghanistan is continually worsening. The Afghan Army and coalition forces have been rebuffed in their efforts to bring the country’s southern and eastern provinces under their control. On the contrary, the Taliban have lately once again established their presence in all the areas from where they had been uprooted due to the operations of the coalition forces since 2001.
  A majority of the Pushtun population sympathise with and back the Taliban fighting foreign (…)

• The Indo-Soviet Friendship Treaty and its Legacy

  13 September 2011, by Arun Mohanty

  As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of historic Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation signed on August 9, 1971, we cannot miss to re-emphasise the important role the Treaty played in safeguarding India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, shaping the geopolitics of the Indian subcontinent and strengthening regional security and world peace.
  The Treaty was second perhaps only to India’s attainment of independence in terms of its significance for Indians and in terms (…)