Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Time for Intervention

  31 January 2011, by SC

  January 26 has a special significance in the annals of both pre- and post-independence India. In 1930 the day was observed as Independence Day by virtue of a resolution adopted at the historic Lahore session of the Indian National Congress at the fag end of the previous year; it was at the session that the premier national organisation had for the first time proclaimed purna swaraj (full independence) as its goal. And within two-and-a-half years after the British quit this country in August (…)

• The Greatest Treasure

  31 January 2011, by Jawaharlal Nehru

  January 30 this year marks the sixtythird anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s martyrdom. We offer our homage to his indelible memory by reproducing the following excerpts from Jawaharlal Nehru’s statement in the Constituent Assembly on February 2, 1948, that is, within three days of the assassination of the Father of the Nation.
  I am not quite sure in my own mind if it is exactly fitting for me or for any others of this House to say much on this occasion, for I have a sense of utter shame both (…)

• Netaji’s Unforgettable Words

  31 January 2011

  On January 23 this year falls Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s one hundred and fourteenth birth anniversary. On this occasion we are carrying the following excerpts from Netaji’s writings and speeches for the benefi of our readers.
  Every great movement starts from small beginnings, and so it will be in India. Our first task will be to gather together a group of men and women who are prepared to undergo the maximum sacrifice and suffering which will be necessary if we are to attain success in (…)

• The Anguish of the Republic

  31 January 2011, by Shree Shankar Sharan

  The Republic is in deep anguish. What has been happening around us is too serious to be dismissed with anger. The Commonwealth Games has brought more shame than medals. Then came the 2G scam and the losses caused by faulty and ill-considered or reckless orders of the then Minister was estimated to be Rs 1 lakh 76 thousand crores, a mind-boggling figure by the CAG, a constitutional office. Then while the matter was sub judice and before Parliament another Minister rose to claim that no losses (…)

• Indian Republic in Political Imbroglio

  31 January 2011, by P R Dubhashi

  This article was written sometime ago but could not be published earlier due to unavoidable reasons. It is now being carried as its contents retain their validity.
  As we approach the next Republic Day on January 26, 2011, the people of India are finding their sixty-year-old Republic in a state of disarray with Parliament, our highest representative assembly, trapped in a political imbroglio and the governance of the country caught in a creeping paralysis under the impact of successive (…)

• Independence Won: Independence Lost

  31 January 2011

  by Pushpa M. Bhargava
  The year was 1942. The ‘Quit India’ Movement. I had just joined the Lucknow University and was, like millions of others, intimately involved in the freedom movement.
  Not without reason. At the India Coffee House in Hazratganj, I turned the cup and saucer over. Made in Great Britain (GB). So were the straws, pencil, paper, nails, pins and clips. We produced no manufactured product. The shirt I wore, came from Lancashire mills in England woven from Indian cotton. We (…)

• National Role for India’s Veterans—Learning from USA’s Veterans

  31 January 2011, by S G Vombatkere

  With deepening strategic ties between India and the USA, there is also increased military-to-military contact for training and inter-operability. Both India and the USA are democracies, one the largest and the other the oldest, both with volunteer militaries statutorily under civilian control. Just as the two democracies have much to learn from each other, so too, have their respective militaries and their respective veterans.
  However, there are differences in the national strategy, (…)

• On Review of Jolly Kaul’s Memoirs

  31 January 2011, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  COMMUNICATION
  After the publication of my article reviewing Jolly Mohan Kaul’s book In Search of a Better World: Memoirs, I find that the first subheading that I gave in it was inappropriate. Actually it intended to convey “No Difference in Lifestyle-related Objectives between the Soviet and Capitalist States”; the omission of the word ‘lifestyle-related’ was an error for which I take full responsibility.
  A reader asked me if my statement (under the subheading “Reasons for Collapse of (…)

• Thoughts on Bihar Assembly Elections 2010

  31 January 2011, by Syed Shahabuddin

  The massive victory of the JD(U)- BJP alliance in the recent Assembly elections in Bihar has been eulogised to the skies by the civil society and mass media and depicted as the beginning of new politics in Bihar, cooling the caste cauldron and changing the prevailing anarchy to order. It has been said that the people of Bihar have voted for the Nitish Kumar-led alliance because it generated a new hope and sense of pride among the people as well as an inspiration for the future. The analysts (…)

• Questions and Answers on Kashmir Issue

  31 January 2011, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  The following are the author’s answers to the questions he received on phone in response to his three articles on Kashmir published in the Mainstream. You have been eloquent about Kashmiriyat. What is so special about it? You have also said that Wahabi Islam has eclipsed Kashmiri culture. What is Wahabi Islam and how could it submerge Kashmiriyat?
  Ans: Kashmiriyat is a culture founded in the teachings of Shaykh Nooruddin, who was also called Nund Rishi. His father was an early convert to (…)