Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Arundhati Roy’s Errors and Interlocutors’ Bloomers

  10 November 2010, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  COMMUNICATION
  Arundhati Roy and myself were on the same wavelength in stressing that the government’s policy of allowing factories in fertile farmlands and giving mining leases in forestlands was responsible for alienating the adivasis and farmers, thereby breeding the Maoists. I, too, condemn the fake encounters staged by Army- men and the vandalism by paramilitary forces in Kashmir and demand that both the Union and the State governments seek the people’s forgiveness for whatever heinous (…)

• Obama Visit: A Left Viewpoint

  10 November 2010

  The following is a Background Note prepared on behalf of the CPI-ML (Liberation) for protests it is planning to hold during US President Barack Obama’s visit to India in cooperation with other likeminded organisations. Written by Arindam Sengupta, a leader of the party, it is captioned “US Hands Off India, Hands Off Asia”. It has been published in the CPI-ML (Liberation) weekly news magazine ML Update (October 29-November 1, 2010) from where it is being reproduced with due acknowledgement. (…)

• Uncle Sam, Energy and Peace in Asia

  10 November 2010, by M K Bhadrakumar

  In the Orient, offsprings don’t rebuke parents, even if the latter are at fault—especially in the post-Soviet space where Marxian formalism continues to prevail as political culture. The sort of stern public rebuke bordering on short shrift that Ashgabat administered to Moscow is extraordinary.
  But then, Moscow tested Turkmen patience by trying to create confusion about Ashgabat’s policy of positive “neutrality”—building energy bridges to the West alongside its thriving cooperation with (…)

• Obama & Co are Planning to Run Away from Afghanistan

  10 November 2010, by H K Dua

  With Afghanistan facing a lot of uncertainty in the foreseeable future, it is imperative for India to begin thinking of how it should meet the contin-gencies arising in its immediate neighbourhood.
  Latest reports from Kabul tend to suggest that President Hamid Karzai’s government has in a way begun talking to a section of the Taliban. Although these talks are at a preliminary level, the idea is to promote “reconciliation” to facilitate the induction of what in President Barak Obama’s (…)

• ‘West is West’: New American Protectionism and the Indian IT Sector

  10 November 2010, by K M Seethi

  Globalisation is often understood as a process that is identical with liberalisation or the opening up of the local and national borders to the global market. But the process as it has been underway is much more complex than this simple or mechanical linkage between globalisation and ‘open door’. Even as there has been very significant liberalisation in recent years, this has been paralleled by the continuation or even the intensification of protectionism in some countries, including the (…)

• Dealing with United States

  10 November 2010, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  FROM N.C.’S WRITINGS
  A strange situation of apparently contra-dictory facets mark the present phase of India’s relationship with the United States of America.
  Of late, there is a surfeit of talks about “shared values” ranging from commitment to democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. To this has been added in recent months, the government’s new economic policy which plays up private enterprise and underplays public sector—at least that’s how it has been taken in the USA. And (…)

• An Open Letter to President Obama

  10 November 2010

  Dear Mr President,
  I hope you are doing great. I am delighted to hear that you are coming to India. The last time I saw you at the OSU rally in Ohio battling out against a belligerent Ms Clinton. I have moved back to India since. I witnessed jubilation back home among the Indians in general and the downtrodden in particular seeing the highest office of the most powerful country gained by someone lowest in the social strata—a victory of sorts for the civil rights leader, Martin Luther King (…)

• Tribute to S.R. Sankaran

  10 November 2010

  [The following e-mail from S.P. Shukla was read out at a meeting held at the Council for Social Development, New Delhi on October 18, 2010 to offer homage to the memory of S.R. Shankaran. The e-mail was sent to Prof Manoranjan Mohanty in response to the latter’s mail to him giving the sad news of Sankaran’s demise.]
  by S.P. SHUKLA
  It is hard to recomcile with the fact that S.R. is no more. I came to know of his sudden demise only through this mail. We grew together in the IAS. Right from (…)

• S.R. Sankaran: A Path-breaking Civil Servant

  10 November 2010, by K S Subramanian

  S.R. Sankaran (SRS hereafter), the unosten-tatious but remarkable civil servant who passed away recently, was known for his many qualities of head and heart. His simplicity, modesty and commitment to the rural poor was rivalled only by that of Comrade Nripen Chakraborty, the former Chief Minister of Tripura, with whom he had worked as the Chief Secretary. Whether he was posted in Tripura, Andhra Pradesh or the Government of India, SRS was singleminded in his devotion to the welfare of the (…)

• Prasar Bharati Must Perform

  10 November 2010, by Bharat Jhunjhunwala

  The government has decided that Door-darshan and Akashvani will be provided limited financial assistance in future. These services are run by their parent organisation, Prasar Bharati. Presently the deficit in current expenditures is wholly met by the government through budgetary support. It is now decided that only one-half of the current expenditures will be met by the government. Prasar Bharati will have to raise one-half through advertisements. The property being used by the organisation (…)