Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• A Case of Conscience - Letter to the Prime Minister

  14 April 2011

  by Shiv Vishwanathan
  (This letter was sent sometime ago. But it is being published now as the movement for Dr Binayak Sen’s release is gathering increasing momentum with every passing day.)
  Dear Dr Manmohan Singh,
  I hope you don’t mind the temerity of this letter. It is written as one scholar to another, one citizen to another. I know you are a PM and people like me may not be influential. However, some things must be said and said clearly.
  I was aghast to find that Doctor Binayak (…)

• Fukushima Lessons

  14 April 2011

  by A.H. Nayyar, M.V. Ramana and Zia Mian
  The March earthquake and tsunami in Japan have already claimed more than 10,000 lives, and some 17,500 people are still missing.
  This disaster has been compounded by the continuing threat of widespread radioactive contamination from the accidents at four nuclear reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi site and the pools that contain their still hot, intensely radioactive spent nuclear fuel. Even if the nuclear accident is contained, it carries many (…)

• Deceptive Diplomats and Disloyal Officials of India

  14 April 2011, by Era Sezhiyan

  WikiLeaks was founded in 2006 by Julian Assange, an Australian software developer and internet activist. As a computer programmer and hacker, he exposed some of the secret documents on extra-judicial killings in Kenya, toxic waste dumped in the African coastal regions and the misdeeds of some international banks.
  In setting up WikiLeaks, Assange wrote about the objectives of his venture: “To radically shift regime behaviour we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, (…)

• Uranium Enrichment Plant: Focus on Mysore

  14 April 2011, by N.S. Chakravarthy, S G Vombatkere

  The nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan, has placed the integrity of nuclear power establish-ments and their claims of nuclear power being safe-cheap-clean under public scrutiny. The Fukushima disaster has exceeded the grim expectations of nuclear power objectors. The accidents at Windscale (UK, 1957), Three Mile Island (USA, 1979) and Chernobyl (USSR, 1986)— all happened without earthquake or tsunami and involved only one nuclear reactor. But Fukushima, on March 12, 2011, saw four reactors (…)

• Truth Behind the Fire in Sabarmati Express (Godhra, February 27, 2002)

  14 April 2011, by K S Subramanian

  The special fast-track court judge, P.R. Patel, has pronounced his verdict on the mystery behind the fire incident in the Sabarmati Express at Godhra on February 27, 2002. The conspiracy theory put forward by the Gujarat Police has been upheld. A volley of protests has followed pointing to the many contradictions in the judgement, which will surely be contested before higher judicial authorities.
  In this context, it is necessary to examine the verdict on the Sabarmati Express fire episode (…)

• Gujarat Nine Years On

  14 April 2011, by Humra Quraishi

  That ghost of Godhra, that ghost of the Gujarat pogrom, those killings in that politically charged communal surcharge, still hover around. In fact, getting compounded as legalities come by. Seeing shots of those 63 men acquitted in the Godhra train burning case sent down a strange feeling—after nine long years you release a bunch of men with the innocent tag to them, without an apology of keeping them duly caged and in your possession. Also, should it have been a simple release? What about (…)

• Are these Anti-Naxal Operations, Mr Chidambaram?

  14 April 2011, by Gladson Dungdung

  India’s security budget grows up every year and even the economic crisis does not make any difference to it. The Indian Government spends most of its money for the security of its own people. Apart from this, the government also has special budget allocations for dealing with the internal security threat and several State governments also spend the money, allocated for the Tribal Sub-plan, on security. Ironically, the government(s) use the money, which is supposed to be spent for their (…)

• Vilified at Home, Lionised Abroad

  14 April 2011, by M K Bhadrakumar

  “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
  —Pericles (495-429 BC)
  Mikhail Gorbachev’s historical legacy is hard to sum up. He means different things to different people. Maybe it is also a hallmark of greatness.
  Within Russia, what stood out was Gorbachev’s seminal contribution to laying the foundations of a civil society. Temperamentally and politically, he was averse to coercive methods of governance. Thereby he (…)

• Independent Central Asia beyond a “New Great Game”

  14 April 2011

  REVIEW ARTICLE
  by Ajay Patnaik
  Inside Central Asia—A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Iran by Dilip Hiro; Harper Collins Publishers India, New Delhi; 2010; pages 448; Price: Rs 599.
  Dillip Hiro’s latest book Inside Central Asia is, as the cover suggests, a political and cultural history of not just five former Soviet Central Asian republics but also that of two extended cultural neighbours—Turkey and Iran. There (…)

• Indo-Russian Strategic Partnership: A Reality Check

  14 April 2011, by Arun Mohanty

  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s official visit to India on December 21-22, 2010 capped the visits of all the five permanent members of UNSC last year. This provided an opportunity to compare the magnitude of our strategic relation-ship with all these countries. Medvdev’s visit to India was preceded by the visits of US President Barak Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nikolas Sarkozy and Chinese Prime Minster Wen Jiabao to our country in quick succession making (…)