Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• UN Security Council Seat Will Test India’s Mettle

  24 October 2010, by M K Bhadrakumar

  Joy erupted within the establishment in New Delhi late on Tuesday evening (October 12) as news arrived from New York regarding India’s election to a non-permanent two-year Asian seat in the United Nations Security Council. A dutiful media ecstatically tagged along. The infectious excitement was not without good reason.
  A 19-year slice of memory was definitively breaking away—dating to the dark day when India was badly bruised as it contested against Japan and received hardly (…)

• Faith, Fact and the Law in Ayodhya — An Appeal in the National Interest

  24 October 2010, by S G Vombatkere

  Most people believe that there is a divine law, the details of which are a matter of faith, since the existence of each person’s God can neither be proved nor disproved. One can only pray, “Ishwar-Allah tero naam, sab ko sanmati de bhagawan” for communal harmony and peace. But why discuss this now? The reason is the troubled Ayodhya—Babri mosque-Ram Janmabhoomi issue—that has come to a critical juncture with the split Allahabad High Court verdict of September 30, 2010.
  Matters of (…)

• Federal India’s Ideal on Trial in Kashmir

  24 October 2010, by Sailendra Nath Ghosh

  Two momentous developments took place in the second half of September. An all-party delegation of parliamentarians visited Kashmir to study the ground reality at first hand; and following the visit, an eight-point package was announced by the Government of India. The all-party delegation of MPs symbolised the whole of India’s interest (i) in Kashmir’s sentiments and views about their future, and (ii) in knowing precisely the factors that gave rise to the unrest.
  The eight-point (…)

• State Terrorism in Kashmir Valley

  24 October 2010, by Humra Quraishi

  MUSINGS
  [The following piece was sent to us quite sometime ago but could not be used earlier due to unavoidable reasons.]
  It pained me to read of Sikhs receiving threats in the Valley and as I sat back wondering the whys to it, I found it almost unbelievable. For all along, all these years, even during the peak of the earlier crisis phases, I always saw great unity between the Valley Sikhs and the Muslim population. In fact, the bonding seemed perfect, with just about no hint or a strain (…)

• The Kashmir Stalemate

  24 October 2010

  by Sajad Padder
  One does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand the importance of the Kashmir issue which has been like a thorn in Indo-Pak relations for over sixty years. How different that relation-ship might have been, had there not been this interminable dispute over the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir! Open borders and unrestricted movement between one country and another, such as now occurs throughout Europe; trade, cultural, educational, social exchanges, free (…)

• Activist in Search of an Alternative: Reflections on Contemporary People’s Movements in West Bengal

  24 October 2010

  by Sumit Chowdhury
  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
  it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness... we had everything before us, we had nothing before us...
  —Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)
  Reflecting on the historic people’s movements in West Bengal in recent years, my mind harks back over and over again to those immortal lines from Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Indeed, for someone who has been involved with Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh in (…)

• 1962: Twenty Years Later

  24 October 2010, by Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea

  [(October 20 this year marks the fortyeighth anniversary of the Sino-Indian border war that witnessed the first ever bloody conflict between the two Asian giants resulting in heavy casualties on the Indian side. On this occasion we are reproducing the following article that appeared on the twentieth anniversary of the border conflict in Mainstream (October 1982). Its author, Dr Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea, an acknowledged authority on China’s international relations, passed away in New Delhi on (…)

• Growing Chinese Assertiveness: Love Thy Neighbour?

  24 October 2010

  by Vaishnavi Tannir
  Many feel that the recent Chinese activity in the region of Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan spells trouble. At this point, fully comprehending the critical implications this move has, and will have, on the region and its participants, we have to carve a way forward. Moreover, an under-standing of the underlying motives and perceptions of China, India and Pakistan is most significant. This particular manoeuvre affects these countries most directly, and the US in an (…)

• Taking Solar Energy to Remote Villages: Barefoot College Shows The Way

  24 October 2010, by Bharat Dogra

  While renewable energy was always considered more desirable from the point of view of environment protection, its importance has increased several times in these times of climate change. Solar energy is particularly seen as a very promising source in energy planning for the future in tropical countries like India. Interest in realising the potential of solar energy is fast increasing and organisations which have been pioneers in solar energy are attracting a lot of well-deserved attention. (…)

• Burma/Myanmar: A Boycott turns the Clock Back

  24 October 2010

  by Khin Zaw Win
  In the emotion-wracked months following the popular uprising in 1988 in Burma/Myanmar, I had thought of writing something titled A Burmese Sense of the Tragic. Now, 22 years later, something I write could well be titled A Burmese/Myanmar Sense of the Ironic. A country and people who have been cut off from democracy for 48 years are going to have elections on November 7, but a whole slew of vocal ‘democrats’ are clamouring for a boycott of those polls.
  I am not about (…)