Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• ’Who Is Civilised?’: In Praise of Tribal Traditions, Society, and Culture in India

  28 September 2010, by Arup Maharatna

  There can be little dispute that the socio-cultural norms, practices, and rituals in the mainstream Hindu tradition subsume a deep ideological repugnance towards gender equality. But this contrasts with the country’s overall tribal culture and society. Indeed, the latter, which has for long been exterior to the patently patriarchal and caste-hierarchical Hindu socio-cultural orbit, is traditionally characterised by a high degree of gender equity with its many admirable demographic (…)

• Decentralised Educational Planning in India: A Critique on the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan

  28 September 2010, by Lakshmi Narayanan

  Introduction
  The educational development in India is neither homogenous in regional spread nor neutral to social formations. It has a strong bias in favour of economically developed areas with strong infrastructural support and against the backward regions of the country. In spite of planned efforts spread over four decades, regional disparities continue to be glaring. (Moonis Raza and et al. 1990) In this background, the ongoing Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) mission considers (…)

• Pathways to Bangladesh

  28 September 2010, by Punam Pandey

  Bangladesh depicts a story of two brothers who were sharing a passage and front area of the two houses; a dispute arose between the two families, and overnight a wall measuring 10 feet with gates emerged on the scene. But unlike the neighbourly wall, this wall is manned by security forces and a number of formalities follow before entering into the other’s territory.
  With financial grant constraints, instead of taking airways, I had to undertake a bus route to reach Dhaka. The bus started (…)

• Stakes in Kashmir

  28 September 2010, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The cordially generated during the Prime Minister’s recent visit to Kashmir has far-reaching significance for Indian politics.
  It is one of the futile by-products of low-level politicking—so widespread in the national scene today—that has led to the deplorable rift between Sheikh Abdullah’s National Conference and the Congress-I. This estrangement, avoidable as well as unnecessary, has not only polluted the political atmosphere in Kashmir but has threatened to touch off a vicious chain (…)

• Kashmir in My Heart on Eid Morning

  28 September 2010, by Humra Quraishi

  This Eid morning I took out that dried chinar leaf which lay tucked in one of the two volumes on Kashmir—‘Kashir’—by Kashmiri historian G.M.D. Sufi. I clasped it gently, with nostalgia overpowering, as I sat visualising the extent of sorrow and anger that seems spreading all over the Valley. Killings of innocents, of young school-going teenagers. Even this week as the Valley is going through the worst possible crisis, we in New Delhi seem so far away from the realities, and third-class (…)

• Options we have; have we the Will?

  28 September 2010, by T J S George

  IMPRESSIONS
  Another war with India is unlikely to be on China’s agenda. But menacing military build-up and other needling tactics to divert India’s energies and attention is central to its agenda. It’s an old ploy. But the level of aggressiveness is new.
  India’s politicians, the TV channels in particular, have a way of reacting to such unfriendly actions in an emotional, high-decibel style. Which is reminiscent of the Nehru-era cries like “we won’t let them get one inch of Indian (…)

• From ‘Rajniti’ to ‘Lokniti’: Scanning The Works Of Gandhi, M.N. Roy And JP

  28 September 2010, by Bhaskar Sur

  BOOK REVIEW
  Power to the People, Vols. I and II by R.M. Pal and Meera Verma (eds.); Gyan Publishing House, New Delhi; 2007; Rs 1800.
  It is a paradox of history that democracy (literally the rule of the people) has so often ended up becoming a camouflaged rule of the power elite at the expense of ‘demos’. Liberal democracy, that flourished in the 19th century, failed to meet the demands of an impoverished working class and it came to be seen as a facade for class rule. This democracy (…)

• Cause for Alarm

  20 September 2010, by SC

  On September 9 Congress chief and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, who has just been ‘re-elected’ as the party President, made certain valuable observations. She said that while land was needed to build industry, the “land acquisition must be done in a manner that does not result in the loss of large tracts of fertile and productive agricultural land so indispensable to grow foodgrains and feed people.” She further opined that environmental concerns cannot be rejected offhand. She also opined (…)

• Shame! Shame!

  20 September 2010, by P K Chatterjee

  In a parliamentary democracy, the most important institution through which the supremacy of the people is expressed and enforced is Parliament. The Members of Parliament are there only in representative capacity as trustees of the people. Gandhiji said:
  …..If they do not become trustees of their own accord, force of circumstances will compel the reform, unless they court utter disaster.
  He further said “…Public opinion will do what violence can never do.” What Gandhiji said is probably (…)

• Open Letter to the PM

  20 September 2010, by Shree Shankar Sharan

  Respected Prime Minister,
  In a landmark ruling from the viewpoint of the poor, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has directed that surplus foodgrains without proper storage should be distributed among the poor rather than be allowed to rot. The Government of India is reported to be unwilling to abide by the ruling maybe because it is not on all fours with the Bill of right to food in which there is provision only for cheap grains, not free grain. There is a provision in the Natural Calamities (…)