Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Two Decades of New Economic Policies

  31 December 2010, by Arun Kumar

  I. Introduction
  The New Economic Policies (NEP) were initiated in June 1991 by the Narasimha Rao Government within days of its taking office. There was little hint in its manifesto drafted to fight the elections in May 1991 that anything like this would be initiated by it if it came to power. Dr Manmohan Singh was chosen to be the Finance Minister of this government. In the past two decades of the working of these policies, the basic parameters of the economy and society have undergone a (…)

• Indian Bourgeoisie in Post-Colonial Setting

  31 December 2010, by Kripa Shankar

  The Indian bourgeoisie had its genesis in the colonial order created by the British in the interest of their imperialist designs. They transplanted the European type of feudalism on Indian soil. Under British rule zamindars were owners of the bulk of the land and were free to raise revenue exactions beyond any limit. And their greed and tyranny knew no bounds. The British deliberately destroyed the handicrafts, mainly cotton textiles, to make room for British manufactures. Rural India was in (…)

• Soap Bubbles in our Security Perspectives

  31 December 2010, by Rakesh Gupta

  Any security—individual, societal and state stands on values, structures and processes within a state in a given external environment of hostility. Constitutionalism, democracy, group rights, secularism and justice are the foundational values, as laid out in the Constitution, that would and do form our core values informing the structures of India’s ‘democratic political community’. Every person, group, official, political party, tribe, community and caste are supposed to abide by these (…)

• Marx to Gandhi—Experiences of a Lifetime

  31 December 2010, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  REVIEW ARTICLE
  In Search of a Better World: Memoirs by Jolly Mohan Kaul; published by Samya, a publishing house in Kolkata; 2010; pages 384; price: Rs 700.
  This reviewer has much in common with the author. Both joined the communist movement in their teens. This reviewer, after a stint of 19 years, relinquished his membership in February 1957, after his differences on both domestic policies and foreign affairs culminating in his public denunciation in 1957 of the Soviet suppression of (…)

• Going back to Gora

  31 December 2010, by Amiya Dev

  “In May next year the country will observe Rabindranath Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary. The following piece is being carried here as a token of our tribute to that extraordinary personality who, while being rooted in Indian ethos and culture, transcended the barriers of nationalism and attracted several of our national leaders, notably Jawaharlal Nehru, while engaging in lively debates with Mahatma Gandhi. Incidentally the centenary of Tagore’s novel Gora (on which the ariticle is written) (…)

• Meira Paibis: Women Torch-bearers on the March in Manipur

  31 December 2010

  by Shruti Mukherji
  One can trace back the history of today’s Miera Paibis to the days of the Nupi Lan or women’s war in 1904 and 1939. Beginning as a protest against price rise, the demand extended over to administrative reforms against the oppressive economic and administrative policies ruled by the Manipur Maharaja and the Political Agent—Mr Gimson—of the British Government. Women’s role in public sphere is not new to Manipur. Meitei women have enjoyed a significant space outside (…)

• Sharad Patil’s Pathfinding Sautantrik Marxwad

  31 December 2010

  by Madhu Shetye
  What is the path of the democratic socialist system in India? This is a moot problem for this country’s crisis-ridden Left whose politics and ideology are deadlocked. Thanks to their dogmatic bookish non-innovative ideological imprison-ment.
  The exception to this catastrophic crisis of the Left is the leadership of Comrade Sharad Patil who founded his Satyashodhak Marxwadi Party among the adivasis in the rural backward areas of Maharashtra.
  His deep research into (…)

• Korean Peninsula: Looking through the Lenses

  31 December 2010

  by Vaddi Sudhakar
  The Korean peninsula is once again sending an alarm signal to the international community that the region is highly sensitive. The firing of shells between the two Korean nations is a second major incident after the sinking of South Korea’s corvette Cheonan in March 2010. The series of incidents in the peninsula region have led the actors to push towards the brink of waging war in the North-East Asian region, primarily the Republic of Korea (South) and Democratic People’s (…)

• Making Money while Helping the Poor

  31 December 2010, by Nirmalya Biswas

  Introduction
  Is it possible to make money while helping the poor fighting against poverty? In the last ten years or so, at least one business, micro-financing, appears to answer in the affirmative. Micro-finance has been a catchword for a few years now, a panacea for poverty eradication that the poor have all been looking for. It would carry away the poor out of poverty as if by swaying the magic wand of microfinance. The birth of the movement roughly coincided with the rise of the (…)

• Productive Outcome of Sarkozy Visit

  12 December 2010, by SC

  While the 2G spectrum scam takes a new turn with the CBI carrying out nationwide raids on several premises including those of disgraced erstwhile Telecom Minister A. Raja and his close associates among officials and businessmen more than a year after it filed an FIR in that regard, terror has revisited Varanasi with the December 7 blast leaving a one-year-old girl dead and 35 injured (among whom are four foreigners), and the outlawed terror outfit Indian Mujahideen (IM) claiming (…)