Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Civilisational Cairo versus Fools

  21 February 2011, by T J S George

  Cairo has a distinction other ancient, continuous-civilisation cities like Damascus, Baghdad and Varanasi have never had: It is the heart-beat of pan-Arab culture, its influence stretching for beyond its national boundries. Egyptian novelist Naguib Mehfouz was the Arab world’s novelist, not just Egypt’s. Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram was the Arab world’s newspaper. Egypt’s Al-Azhar university was the Arab world’s university.
  Typical of Egypt, the Al-Ahram newspaper was always (…)

• People’s Power

  21 February 2011, by Shree Shankar Sharan

  The world has been charmed by the exercise and display of people’s power in Egypt. It all started in Tunisia over a common man setting himself aflame because of the callousness of authorities setting off huge demonstrations ending with the resignation of the President. But it reached its apogee in Egypt by what the Egyptians fondly called the march of a million in the Tahrir Square from day to day, unafraid and undeterred by the presence of the Egyptian Army, whose mind none could foretell, (…)

• Bliss was it in that Dawn!

  21 February 2011, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  In the wake of the memorable mass upsurge in Egypt we reproduce the following piece by N.C. on a similar uprising in China in 1989—it was published on May 27, 1989 precisely a week before the massive student movement in Beijing was brutally suppressed on June 4, 1989.
  Like a thunder-lap it has burst. The massive student upsurge that has gripped China today has no parallel in history. A new page is being added to the great revolutions in the annals of humankind—the (…)

• A Zillion Brilliant Blooms of Tahrir: Egypt’s Tryst with Destiny

  21 February 2011

  by Rajarshi Mitra
  Egypt is magic, the land of stories, memories, and the exotic. She never failed to mesmerise the world, and as the present shows, she continues to. Observing and admiring, like the world is, I was reminded of Shakespeare’s moving dramatisation of a similar node in Egypt’s remarkable past. In Antony and Cleopatra, a romantic and sybaritic Antony, ever forgetful of his magisterial duties, cries out: ‘Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch/ Of the ranged empire fall! Here (…)

• Come to Tahrir Square

  21 February 2011, by Suhas Borker

  Come to Tahrir Square
  Be the eye of the peaceful revolution
  Here are the makeshift memorials to the martyrs
  Where hundreds and thousands stood their valiant ground
  See moral courage pitted against insolent might
  See mounted thugs—sent to beat, stone, stab, shoot and kill—retreat
  Witness the power of non-violent action triumph
  Come to Tahrir Square
  Feel the pulse of the people networked on the internet
  Resurrecting human rights and justice
  Hear the stories of oppression (…)

• Dawn of Democracy in the Islamic West

  21 February 2011, by N A Karim

  In the heyday of Islam the region of North and North West Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and Egypt comprising the coastal plain and Atlas Mountains of Morocco together with Algeria and Tunisia and Spain across Strait of Gibraltar formed the Maghrib (West) of Muslim world.
  It all began with a simple incident common in the streets of countries under despotic rule in the Arab world where the police and Army are all powerful as the arms of autocratic authority. A young fruit vendor’s cart (…)

• Manmohan a Role Model, but as PM Can Never be Above Suspicion

  21 February 2011, by Diptendra Raychaudhuri

  “I sincerely believe that like Caesar’s wife, the Prime Minister should be above suspicion and it is for this reason that I am prepared to appear before the PAC even though there is no precedent to that effect.”
  —Manmohan Singh at the plenary session of the Congress party, December 20, 2010.
  We know that when a system faces the possibility of degeneration the leaders try to make absurd emotional appeals to convince the common man about their infallibility. This is often done by the (…)

• India and the Washington Consensus

  21 February 2011, by Girish Mishra

  Ever since 1967, the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Lecture has been organised almost every year in the month of November at Teen Murti House by the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund.
  The latest lecture was delivered by Prof. Joseph E. Stiglitz of the Columbia University. Stiglitz, a world-renowned economist and Nobel Laureate, has been well known in India for his clarity and conviction of views. His books are widely read and discussed among not only economists but also the wider circle of (…)

• New Capitalism and the Emerging Global Crisis—A Biblical Perspective

  21 February 2011, by V Mathew Kurian

  I. Introduction
  Capitalism has become the dominant ‘world system’. This system is now in a severe crisis. This crisis is multidimensional, including social, political, economic, ecological and ethical. Unless an alternative world view to capitalism is promoted, human life in this planet earth is going to be too miserable and in the long run, the very life may be extinct. In this scenario, religions have a critical role to play. This article, broadly takes the perspective as revealed both (…)

• Global Crisis is Brewing

  21 February 2011, by Bharat Jhunjhunwala

  The World Bank has estimated in the recently released ‘Global Economic Prospects’ report that the growth rate of the developed countries is likely to increase from the present 2.2 per cent to 2.5 per cent in 2012. The growth rate of the developing countries is likely to remain firm at the respectable six per cent. The Bank, in the same breath, has cautioned that the problem of government debt of the developed countries can become dangerous. Other analysts have expressed concern that (…)