Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• For Real Scoundrels, Look Beyond Media

  7 April 2011, by T J S George

  Does the media distort facts? The Prime Minister thinks so. By “focussing excessively” on scam after scam, does the media spoil India’s image? The Prime Minister thinks so. For the leader of a government that is neck-deep in scams, it is natural to think as the Prime Minister does. But that does not make it right. In fact the Prime Minister is hopelessly wrong.
  Manmohan Singh was in conversation with television editors. A great deal can be said in criticism of news channels. Generally (…)

• Japan, Libya, ‘Cash-for-Votes’ and WikiLeaks

  28 March 2011, by SC

  The enormity of the natural disaster in Japan on account of the earthquake-cum-tsunami that struck that country on March 11 (lately experts have concluded that the quake measured 9 on the Richter scale and not 8.9 as was earlier stated) is coming out in its grotesque form with every passing day. According to latest reports, the quake-cum-tsunami killed an estimated 9400 persons while another 14,700 are reported missing and yet another 2750 have been injured; the damages caused by the (…)

• Nuclear Power — Real Risks, Real Costs

  28 March 2011, by S G Vombatkere

  Assurances
  In view of the renewed focus on the nuclear industry following the earthquake-tsunami double-whammy in Japan, India’s nuclear industry and its proponents are in overdrive to assure the public that nuclear safety issues are well in hand, but are nevertheless being reviewed. Some supporters of the nuclear programme have questioned the credentials of the common people to question the safety of nuclear power plants (NPPs); one commentator has even accused critics of the nuclear (…)

• Mad Dog on Rampage

  28 March 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  [In the wake of the airstrikes by the US, UK and France on Gaddafi’s Libya, one is reminded of the bombing of Libya, led by the same leader, that the US under Ronald Reagan carried out in April 1986, that is, twentyfive years ago. That is precisely why we are reproducing here one of N.C.’s editorials written at that time. Even though the conditions under which that bombing took place are vastly different from the situation prevailing today, the contents of the (…)

• A False Dawn and a Long Dark Night in West Asia

  28 March 2011, by N A Karim

  That the sudden spurt of democratic spirit on a street of Tunis in Tunisia as a result of a rather bizarre incident of self-immolation of an IT trained fruit-seller youth who was publicly slapped by a woman police and its spread to the whole country compelled its President Zein-al -Abdeen Ben Ali ending his twentythree-year- long autocracy seemed too strange to believe. But it happened in the full gaze of the whole world. Not only that this new urge for democracy ended the highly corrupt (…)

• Illegitimacy of No-Fly-Zone against Libya: Reflections of the American World Order

  28 March 2011, by Arshi Khan

  The imposition of the ‘no-fly-zone’ against Libya under the UN Security Council Resolution 1973 on March 17 and subsequent unlawful aggressions by the US, UK and France for two days (March 19-20) seem to show the emerging trend of a new pattern of relationships and activities in international relations which the US desires, that is, of accepting a kind of ‘cowed conformity’ and ‘slavish submission’ by the states which had believed in pursuing independent foreign policies. This has been (…)

• Is Rajasthan Government Selling Farmers’ Interests?

  28 March 2011, by Bharat Dogra

  DEALS WITH MULTINATIONALS AND OTHER BIG AGRIBUSINESS COMPANIES
  A wide range of farmers’ organisations, Gandhian organisations, people’s movements and NGOs have united to oppose a series of disturbing agreements which the Rajasthan Government reached with various multinational and other agribusiness companies including Monsanto. These agreements, which greatly increase the control and influence of these companies over the agriculture sector in India’s biggest State (in terms of area), have (…)

• Black Money Criminals — Who will Catch the Big Fishes?

  28 March 2011, by A K Dasgupta

  Introduction
  The ghost of “Black Money” stashed in Swiss banks continues to haunt the Government of India. The recent disclosure that more than 100 Indians have deposited their ill-gotten money in these banks and the consequent uproar had forced the government to announce, on January 25, 2011, the appointment of a multi-disciplinary committee to look into the matter. However, the Finance Minister (FM) has refused to disclose the names citing legal problems entailing inter-national treaties (…)

• Miracles or Hoax by the Clergy?

  28 March 2011

  by Pushpa M. Bhargava
  In the Catholic Church, for anyone to be canonised, the person must have performed two miracles, a miracle being an action or an effect which can be explained only by direct intervention of a divine power that can defy all reason and laws of science. So we now hear of the late Pope John Paul II being canonised as he is believed to have cured a woman of Parkinson’s Disease.
  This is reminiscent of two miracles said to have been performed, in retrospect, by Mother (…)

• West Bengal: The Genocidal State under CPI-M Rule

  28 March 2011, by D. Bandyopadhyay

  Tt was reported in the print media that under the CPI-M rule of the last 34 years in this State (West Bengal) 34 events of mass murder were organised either directly by the police resorting to wanton firing on the crowds consisting of Opposition party members or by the armed “harmads” of the CPI-M to seek political revenge or to establish political control over the areas lost to the Opposition party through elections. In the latter incidents the police force aided, abetted and assisted the (…)