Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Fourth Estate or Fifth Column?

  19 March 2011, by N A Karim

  The recent revelations of the role that a section of our press plays raises serious doubts whether Edmund Burke’s Fourth Estate has become Earnest Hemingway’s Fifth Column in the country.
  It was Edmund Burke, the eighteenth century Whig politician and renowned British parliamen-tarian, who used the term Fourth Estate for the first time to denote the realm of the press. During the course of a speech in Parliament he termed the Lords Spiritual (Clergy) as the First Estate of the realm, the (…)

• Reject French Reactors for Jaitapur

  19 March 2011, by A Gopalkrishnan

  The Jaitapur nuclear power project has become a matter of intense discussion all over the country because of the displacement of a large number of the people in the Konkan area; there are also several questions challenging the different nuclear projects of the government. This discussion now involves the nuclear agreements signed by the UPA Government with the US as well as with the French Government for installation of nuclear plants at Jaitapur and other locations. We are reproducing the (…)

• Libya puts China in World Stage Spotlight

  19 March 2011, by M K Bhadrakumar

  This article was written sometime early this month, but its contents remain valid even now. Hence it is being reproduced from Asia Times for the benefit of our readers.
  Launcelot Gobbo told his elderly father in a poignant moment in William Shakespeare’s play Merchant of Venice, “Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long.” But the tragedy of life is often that by the time “truth is out”, Gobbo would have become sand-blind and would no more be able to see his son.
  For the (…)

• Fishermen Issue between India and Sri Lanka

  19 March 2011, by Gurnam Chand

  Abstract
  In the post LTTE-era the fishing rights of Indian and Sri Lankan fishermen have become a major issue between India and Sri Lanka. Despite the existence of various agreements and elaborate understanding, the fishermen issue has trigged unexpected worry in the excellent relations between the two countries. The main problem in the fishing rights in the Palk Bay is that of the conflict between the laws of the sea and traditional fishing rights. The Tamil Nadu fishermen even today (…)

• Bribe Money, Crime Money—Safe Money

  19 March 2011, by T J S George

  India will not chase those illegal funds in foreign banks, that’s for sure. The real reason is that virtually every VIP politician and bureaucrat is involved in it. It is mass guilt, not international treaties as the Prime Minister says, that makes India helpless.
  The US has proved that a determined government can get things done. And let’s not forget that America’s stakes are much less than India’s. A Swiss Banking Association report revealed in 2009 that Indians had $ 1456 billion (…)

• Meaning of Charles Sobhraj

  19 March 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  The scandal of Charles Sobhraj’s escape from Delhi’s much-publicised Tihar Jail is a matter which must shake up all complacency about the state of the country’s security. A notorious international crook—a star target of the Interpol —has not only bolted in broad daylight from a prison supposed to be heavily guarded, but has left behind a trail that points to indiscipline and corruption of unbelievable magnitude.
  This was not a sudden or totally unexpected happening. (…)

• Evolutionary Socialism and Lohia in the Twentyfirst Century

  19 March 2011

  March 23, 2011 marks the 101st birth anniversary of that stormy petrel of Indian politics, Socialist leader Rammanohar Lohia. On this occasion, we remember him by carrying the following articles.
  by Bhagwat Prasad
  The renowned Prof S.H. Alatas in his inauguration lecture in Multiversity’s Penang-II conference made a good speech on ‘The captive Mind’, particularly in the context of the knowledge available amongst the scholars of the erstwhile colonial countries. He referred to “…. this (…)

• Failures of Western Countries and UNO in Afghanistan

  19 March 2011, by Gilbert Etienne

  Very rarely in contemporary history can one come across such an accumulation of wrong assessments, poor judgements, ignorance as shown by the Western countries and UN interventions in Afghanistan after the collapse of the Taliban in December 2001.
  A review of such mistakes may help avoiding their repetition in future. No doubt a number of difficulties have been boosted by the shortcomings of the Afghan authorities: weak administration, corruption… but the reconstruction and fight against (…)

• Lohia‘s Prescription for Capitalism‘s Crises

  19 March 2011

  by Mastram Kapoor
  The President of the USA, Barack Obama, in his message to the G-20 London summit, called for a global effort to overcome the global economic crisis and expressed his determination to take a lead in this matter. He said: “The leaders of the G-20 have a responsibility to take a bold, comprehensive and coordinated action that not only jumpstarts recovery but also starts a new era of economic engagement to prevent a crisis like this taking place in future.” He described the (…)

• Dr Rammanohar Lohia: A Rebel Socialist and a Visionary

  19 March 2011

  by Satya Mitra Dubey
  I
  Dr Rammanohar Lohia, a veteran freedom fighter, great visionary thinker, founder of the Indian socialist movement, a practitioner of Gandhian techniques of resistance and an active exponent of the idea of a world government, was born on March 23, 1910, at Akbarpur, district Faizabad, UP. His death occurred on the October 12, 1967 in New Delhi’s Willingdon Hospital which was renamed as Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital after his death. His political followers along with (…)