Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Fai’s Arrest: Ansari Questions Padgaonkar’s Credibility

  1 August 2011

  by HARI OM
  The United States, which is not a friend of India by any yardstick, has done the needful, doubtless for its own reasons. The arrest of the US citizen and Pakistani Kashmiri agent, Ghulam Nabi Fai, the Director of the American Kashmir Committee (AKC), by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on July 20, has stunned the Anglo-American-Asian world.
  Fai has been living in the United States since 1990. One of the charges levelled against him by the FBI is that he was operating (…)

• ‘Ways and Means to Eradicate Corruption in Public Offices’: A Report

  1 August 2011

  by B.K. PAL
  The fight against corruption is inevitably linked with the fight for human rights as each and every person aspires to live in a corruption-free society on account of being affected by it in one form or the other, said Soli. J. Sorabjee, President of the United Lawyers’ Association (ULA), while presiding over a meeting to discuss “Effective Ways and Means to Eradicate Corruption in Public Offices”, organised by the ULA, at the Indian Law Institute, New Delhi, on July 18, 2011. (…)

• New Deal in Darjeeling Hills

  25 July 2011, by SC

  While Britain has been rocked by the phone-hacking scandal and both media moghul Rupert Murdoch and his son as well as PM David Cameron have been grilled on consecutive days before the House of Commons’ Media Committee, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to India and talks with External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna have brought out both the similarities of approach as well as divergences between the two countries on terrorism and nuclear commerce. Hillary did call upon the US’ (…)

• Towards A Rainbow of Anti-Corruption Measures

  25 July 2011, by Bharat Dogra

  Recent proposals prepared by the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) for a rainbow of anti-corruption and grievance redress measures have brought a new hope to India’s anti-corruption agenda. At a time when people were getting confused by huge charts detailing differences of viewpoints, the practical, down-to-earth suggestions made by the NCPRI have brought a strong ‘can-be-done’ sense to an agenda which was getting too divisive to be ‘doable’.
  The NCPRI, which (…)

• Politician versus Civil Society

  25 July 2011

  by M.G. DEVASAHAYAM
  Since a lot of misunderstanding is sought to be generated by large sections of the political class attacking civil society in a bid to denigrate Anna Hazare and his associates waging a courageous anti-corruption campaign aimed at shaping an effective Lokpal Bill, we are reproducing the following article that appeared in The Statesman in the first week of this month.
  A debate is on over the role of civil society and popular movements in influencing government policies (…)

• The New Face of Judicial Activism

  25 July 2011, by Arup Kumar Sen

  In writing the history of judicial activism in India at the beginning of the 21st century, Prof S.P Sathe noted that the political establishment has used the Court to legitimise its own decisions. He noted in this context that the Gujarat Government moved a contempt petition against the Narmada Bachao Andolon (NBA) for its members’ threat to die with the villagers whose villages were going to be submerged because of the rise in the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam. Actually, the decision of (…)

• Bodyguards: Emerging Apprehensions, Reasons and Redressal

  25 July 2011

  by PIRZADA M. AMIN and ADFAR RASHID SHAH
  After Salman Taseer’s murder by his own bodyguard in Pakistan a few months ago, yet another guard, Sardar Mohammad, has killed President Hamid Karzai’s half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, pumping three bullets into him.
  Sociologically speaking, militia as an institution in South Asia, and especially in Pakistan and Afghanistan, is breaking the cocoon of professio-nalism and staunch and reliable military discipline. The prime factors responsible may (…)

• Taliban Explain Ahmad Wali’s Killing

  25 July 2011, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The Taliban have issued a statement offering an explanation for the assassination in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar of Ahmad Wali Karzai, the younger half-brother of President Hamid Karzai.
  This statement was released on Thursday (July 14)—the same day a suicide bomber disrupted the memorial service in Kandahar for Ahmad Wali, killing three people, including Maulawi Ekmatullah, the head of the local ulema shura (Provincial Religious Council).
  Earlier, the burial of Ahmad Wali on (…)

• Systems Exist to Detect Terrorist Plans; but we Focus on Cabinet Shuffle Tricks

  25 July 2011, by T J S George

  The Cabinet reshuffle—essentially a defeatist’s exercise—had raised major issues concerning the morality of coalition politics and the govern-ment’s very approach to governance. The ensuing public discourse reflected serious worries across the political spectrum about the way the country was going. Presumably that debate could have at least led to a clearer understanding of how not to handle high responsibility.
  But suddenly debate is disrupted, life itself is derailed and everybody’s (…)

• SCO: The Great Game Expands

  25 July 2011

  by BHAVNA SINGH
  The 10th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Astana (Kazakhstan) concluded with the members hailing the ‘Shanghai Spirit’ in determining a ‘new security order’ in Asia and adopting multilateral management as their future agenda. Several agreements were signed to promote regional trade and economic cooperation. The summit proposed to establish an energy club, an SCO development bank and a food security cooperation mechanism in order to encourage regional (…)