Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Surging Rise in Prices and Manmohanomics

  20 July 2011, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  In my student days, I had read William Hazlitt’s essay, “On the Ignorance of the Learned”. Now, we find conspicuous example of purblindness in our learned Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh. He is acclaimed by the G-8 summiteers as a great economist. Since he accepted the Western paradigm of development, his advice, possibly, suits them well. In India, his expertise has resulted in (i) the creation of a small island—better say, an island of a few wealthy families—amid an expanding sea of (…)

• Peculiar Political Situation

  20 July 2011

  COMMUNICATION
  The sustained resistance to government acquisition of their lands for the POSCO composite project (port + steel plant + power plant) in Jagatsinghpur district of Odisha by the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) over the past five years has gained national, even international, attention since June 2011.
  Politicians of certain political parties in Odisha have joined issue on the side of PPSS even while there is a United Action Committee (UAC) of persons who are (…)

• Madhya Pradesh Activists Attacked

  20 July 2011

  COMMUNICATION
  Former MLA of Madhya Pradesh and social activist Sunilam was recently attacked by 15 goondas in Chindwara district (MP). Before the attack he was involved in mobilisation of peaceful protest by villagers adversely affected by land acquisition for two controversial projects in this area. Aradhna Bhargava, a leader of project affected farmers, was also attacked at the same time. Both activists were seriously injured.
  Strong steps should be taken to punish the attackers. (…)

• Welcome Rulings from the Highest Judiciary

  10 July 2011, by SC

  As we go to press, news has come that Union Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran has tendered his resignation from the Union Cabinet. In fact his continuance in the Manmohan Singh Govern-ment had become untenable after the CBI sub-mitted, on July 6, its 71-page status report to the Supreme Court (under the latter’s directive) wherein it was made clear that Maran, as the Union Telecom Minister between 2004 and 2007, had misused his office to force the promoter of the mobile phone company Aircel, (…)

• Professor K. Jayashankar: A Tribute

  10 July 2011, by C.H. Hanumantha Rao

  With the passing away of Professor K. Jayashankar on June 21, the movement for the formation of Telangana State has lost the foremost academic and intellectual actively working for this cause for over half-a-century. The void created by his demise cannot be filled except by imparting to the whole movement the values he embodied: a firm commitment to the cause of separate Statehood combined with a highly informed and reasoned approach to the many issues faced by the movement.
  In many (…)

• Declaration of the Athens Conference on Debt and Austerity

  10 July 2011

  The Greek Parliament in Athens on June 29 backed a stinging new austerity plan as demanded by international creditors, something that enraged protesters who fought street battles with the police outside; the latter fired teargas to disperse the crowd but in vain. MPs voted 155 to 138 for the hotly-disputed package aimed at slashing $ 40 billion (that is, 28.4 billion euros) from the balance of government spending by 2015, a plan that would unlock emergency finance from the EU and IMF. (The (…)

• Challenges to Civil Society in India

  10 July 2011

  by Vivek Kumar Srivastava
  In developing societies political parties exercise an influential role. They aim to achieve power and after having achieved it they wish to maintain it by several mechanisms; besides less awareness of the people about the true nature of the democratic system in such societies, there exist limited options to bring the government within a people-centric corruption-free framework.
  In these societies the civil society too exists but in underdeveloped form. The (…)

• Bridging the Divide for Larger Good

  10 July 2011

  COMMUNICATION
  In the divided Bengal of today, the one man who comes in for much use by candidates at the hustings is Rabindranath Tagore. No wonder from their political leaders Bengalis settled in West Bengal have got so used to promises which are not to be kept and statistics which are to be accepted per se. One remembers while one was travelling to Chennai by train many years ago word all on a sudden spread that in Kolkata Mamata Banerjee had been badly hit on the head. The train was (…)

• In Search of Development Alternative

  10 July 2011, by Sunil Roy

  I propose to focus on three sets of issues related to the development perspective especially with reference to countries like India. First, I would like to argue that the dominant development perspective has proved itself irrelevant and extraordinarily sick in practice. It is not necessarily due to it being market-centric, but mainly due to the absence of serious development debates. The development perspective is not static; it evolves over time with new ideas, understanding and insights. (…)

• Repression of Social Activists in Chhattisgarh

  10 July 2011, by Bharat Dogra

  COMMUNICATION
  There seems to be no end to the repression of social activists in Chhattisgarh. After the Chhattisgarh administration tried its best to keep Dr Binayak Sen behind bars, now it is the turn of social and environmental activists Ramesh Aggarwal and Harihar Patel to face the wrath of the government. The State Government appears to be extremely intolerant towards sincere activists who try to protect rural livelihoods and environment from the onslaught of those big capitalists who (…)