Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Nehru’s Vision of Building a Modern India and its Complete Negation since the 1990s

  9 June 2011, by Girish Mishra

  BOOK REVIEW
  Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Second Series, Vol. 42 (April 1-June 30, 1958) edited by Aditya Mukherjee and Mridula Mukherjee; Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, Teen Murti House, New Delhi; 2010; pp. 922; Rs 100.
  Jawaharlal Nehru, throughout his days of the freedom struggle, was among a small band of leaders who strove not only for the country’s liberation from the yoke of colonialism but also had a socio-economic vision of independent India. In fact, he was the (…)

• Fifty Years of Independence: Gains and Losses

  9 June 2011

  [(TRIBUTE
  He was described as the “last of the towering personalities in Bihar’s communist movement”. Veteran freedom fighter and one of the pioneers in setting up the Communist Party of India in Bihar, Jagannath Sarkar, 92, breathed his last at his Patna residence last month (April 8, 2011) after protracted illness. He is survived by his wife Nilima, sons Abhijit (a scientist) and Gautam (consultant for a company in Bangalore), and daughter Usashi (a medical practitioner married to (…)

• Goof-ups and Refusal to Face the Reality

  24 May 2011, by SC

  The last few days have caused considerable embarassment to the Union Government and the Congress party.
  First came the blunder in including terror accused Wazhul Kamar Khan alies Murtaza Choudhary (he was allegedly involved in the 2003 Mulund blasts) in the list of 50 most-wanted fugitives that India had handed over to Pakistan (despite the fact that Khan was actually in this country and living in the densely populated Thane sub-city of Mumbai for years). The report in a newspaper (…)

• West Bengal — What Next?

  24 May 2011, by Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy

  The following is a piece written by S. Sudhakar Reddy, the CPI’s Deputy General Secretary, in response to the Mainstream editor’s request to pen down what he expects from the Trinamul Congress-Congress alliance that has just been elected to power in West Bengal under the leadership of TMC chief Mamata Banjerjee.
  Now the elections are over in five States. The defeat of the Left in West Bengal is a big setback. Though it was expected that the Left could lose, still there is a great (…)

• PAC: Its History and Relevant Facts

  24 May 2011, by Era Sezhiyan

  STATEMENT
  The following is a statement by Era Sezhiyan, a former MP and erstwhile Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). It reached us late; but we are still using it in view of its continued relevance.
  It is unfortunate that there had been reports about the unprecedented disquiet and discord in the deliberations of the PAC on April 28, in consideration of the Draft Report on the 2G scam. A Parliamentary Committee enjoys all the powers, privileges and immunities of the Houses (…)

• West Bengal - CPM Discredited the Left Movement by its Fascist Deeds

  24 May 2011, by Barun Das Gupta

  WEST BENGAL The Trinamul Congress-Congress-SUCI alliance has made a clean sweep of the polls in West Bengal. The alliance or jote has won 227 of the 294 seats (Trinamul Congress 184, Congress 42 and SUCI 1) while the Left tally has nosedived from 235 to 62 (CPI-M 40, Forward Bloc 11, RSP 7, CPI 2, SP 1, DSP 1). As far as the two main contestans, the CPI-M and TMC, are concerned, their fortunes have reversed. In 2006, the CPI-M won 176 seats and the Trinamul 30. This time the CPI-M tally (…)

• Osama, Obama and India’s Foreign Policy

  24 May 2011, by P R Dubhashi

  Indian reactions to the cold blooded assassination of unarmed Osama Bin Laden by American commandos in a quick, 40-minute operation in a three-storied mansion surrounded by a high wall in the garrison town Abbottabad not far away from Pakistan’s Military Academy, reflected the confusion and pusillanimity of the Indian foreign policy and continuous decline in its robust independence and moral stature which characterised the foreign policy in the earlier years of Jawaharlal Nehru and which (…)

• An Open Letter to Mamata Banerjee

  24 May 2011, by A K Biswas

  Honourable Madam,
  While I congratulate you on your spectacular victory in the just concluded Assembly Elections 2011 in West Bengal, I beg to articulate some aspirations and expectations of 24 per cent Scheduled Castes and six per cent Scheduled Tribes, who are by and large marginalised and alienated from the socio-economic development in the last 35 years. By the time this letter appears in print (if at all) you will be in saddle after being sworn in as the Chief Minister of the (…)

• The Big Winner? Not Mamata or Jaya. The Losers? Not Buddha or Karuna

  24 May 2011, by T J S George

  Election Commissions and voting machines can only tell us a superficial kind of truth. The substantive, eternal truth is that those who win are not always the winners and those who lose are not necessarily the real losers. Never was this eternal truth more dramatically brought out than in the latest five State elections. Look behind the headlines to know who are the real winners and losers.
  The biggest winners are not Mamata Banerjee and J. Jayalalitha. The size of their victory margins (…)

• Change Is Such Hard Work

  24 May 2011, by Taslima Nasreen

  Noted writer and novelist Taslima Nasreen wrote the following piece for The Times of India where it was published. However, after its publication she sent the original piece to the Mainstream editor because in the daily’s Delhi edition the last part was abridged. We are carrying the original in full, with the author’s permission, for the benefit of our readers.
  It is my conviction that most people who voted for Trinamul voted not because of love for or confidence in the party but from (…)