Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• NATO, Karzai and the Relics of Kabul

  31 December 2010, by M K Bhadrakumar

  The long-term security document signed between the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Afghanistan on Saturday, November 20 at the alliance’s summit meeting in Lisbon has a 50-50 chance of becoming a historic milestone or ending up as yet another forlorn artefact in the vandalised Kabul museum.
  Having come to the region seven years ago on a UN-mandated “out-of-area” operation for hunting down the Al-Qaeda, the Western alliance is suo moto broadening and deepening its “commitment” in (…)

• When will the Occupation of Afghanistan End?

  31 December 2010, by Ninan Koshy

  Forty nations are embroiled in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Anyone who travels through the country with Western troops soon realises that NATO forces would have to be increased tenfold for peace to be even a remote possibility. —Ulrich Fichtner in Spiegal online International,May 29, 2008
  When will the occupation of Afghanistan by the USA-led NATO end? While the NATO Summit in Lisbon, Portugal in the third week of November gave a timetable for exit, with the end of 2014 as the point (…)

• Radia, Tusi Great Ho

  31 December 2010, by Badri Raina

  The following poem has been sent to us by Badri Raina, a former Professor of English (now retired), University of Delhi, with a note from him that reads: “This is too painful for plain prose.”
  Those that compile lists
  of the rich, famous, and powerful
  men and women
  just missed out on Niira Radia.
  Once given that proverbial chance,
  Radia made the rich and famous dance
  to her competent tune, and made fool
  of many vain achievers
  without ever going to a management (…)

• Un-journalism

  31 December 2010, by T J S George

  The closing months of 2010 saw a cascade of corruption cases as never before witnessed in India. All but one of them had a familiar thread running through them. In the Commonwealth Games swindles, the Adarsh housing fraud, the Allahabad High Court’s “Uncle judge” scandal, the PSU bank managers’ bribe-for-loan trickery and the massive land scams in the BJP’s Karnataka, the driving force was old-fashioned human greed. The exception, the Niira Radia tapes, exposed a systemic rot in the vitals (…)

• Central Interlocutors and Task Forces against the Ground Realities in J&K

  31 December 2010, by Balraj Puri

  The Government of India appointed three interlocutors to “start dialogue with all groups in Kashmir” and appointed two Task Forces—one for Jammu and the other for Ladakh—“to examine their development needs with particular reference to deficiencies in infrastructure and make suitable recommendations”.
  Whatever may be merit of the interlocutors—Dileep Padgoankar, M.M. Ansari and Radha Kumar—their appointment was widely criticised for being light weight and the non-inclusion of a heavyweight (…)

• The Army’s Right to an Opinion

  31 December 2010

  by Firdaus Ahmed
  The right of the Army to voice an opinion has been defended by the Minister of State for Defence, Pallam Raju. The background to his defence was Omar Abdullah’s complaint to the Prime Minister on an Army press release a day earlier. The press release indicated that the decision to remove certain bunkers from Srinagar did not have the Army’s concurrence.
  The press release had stated: ‘Though it appeared to be a well-considered decision, the latest incident has raised (…)

• Why don’t We Listen to the Mirwaiz?

  31 December 2010, by Humra Quraishi

  Why are we not ready to hear what Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has to say? Why is it that he is allowed to be heckled not just in one locale but in each city on the itinerary? Why is the so- called democratic space shrinking so steadily that there seems little room for discussion or for a healthy debate or to even hear what the other has to say? Why is it that those ample relays which are only one-sided, typically babu worded version on the Kashmir Valley ought to be in focus?
  There are extremely (…)

• Migration, Protection and Law

  31 December 2010, by Lakshmidhar Mishra

  Every law is the product of a particular point of time and carries with it the political and economic ethos obtaining at that point of time. Enacted with good intentions, it falls into disuse and eventually becomes a dead letter on account of sweeping changes in the social, economic and political milieu on the one hand and rapid decline over a period of time in the positive and proactive ethos which had given birth to the legislative framework at a particular point of time. It is precisely (…)

• Ordinary People, Extraordinary Movement

  31 December 2010

  by Madhuresh Kumar
  In the early eighties when the murmurs of protest were taking shape against the Sardar Sarovar Dam then no one had thought that the reverberations of ‘Narmada Bachao, Manav Bachao’ [Save Narmada, Save Humanity] will continue nearly three decades after that. The Narmada Bachao Andolan, the seeds of which were sown in 1985, has continued to challenge the Dam, the technocratic model of development, and kept the flag of resistance and justice afloat for the communities in (…)

• Narmada Bachao Andolan — 25 Years of Resistance and Reconstruction

  31 December 2010, by S G Vombatkere

  The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) has reached its quarter century landmark of resistance to the mega-projects in the Narmada valley, becoming an international icon of non-violent protest against destructive development. The NBA is a mass movement; its sustained non-violent and peaceful efforts for equity and justice in the face of severe provocation, and its model of leadership make it a shining example of Gandhian ideals in an era of extreme corruption in morals and ethics.
  Resisting the (…)