Mainstream Weekly

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• An Open Letter to Mahashweta Debi, D. Bandyopadhyay, Suvaprasanna, Sujato Bhadra and Other Friends...

  17 September 2010, by Sumanta Banerjee

  Sumanta Banerjee, an eminent political activist-cum-author and journalist, has written the following open letter to distinguished intellectuals, literary figures, artists and human rights activists of West Bengal criticising their current alignment with Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee with the objective of electorally defeating the CPI-M in the forthcoming Assembly polls next year. We are publishing, for the benefit of our readers, this piece along with a reply to Sumanta Banerjee by (…)

• On Sumanta Banerjee’s Open Letter

  17 September 2010, by Dipanjan Rai Chaudhuri

  Sumanta Banerjee is shocked at actions by intellectuals of West Bengal which might help the TMC electorally. He thinks a TMC victory will be a disaster for the people of West Bengal, and points to the bad performance of TMC-led panchayats, Mamata Banerjee’s Congress (and Youth Congress) antecedents, including support of the Emergency and closeness to Siddhartha Ray, her political mistakes, her controversial acts of commission and omission as the Railway Minister.
  Sumanta Banerjee (…)

• Beyond the Ascent of the Starving Hill

  17 September 2010

  Beyond the ascent of the starving hill
  We reach now this valley,
  At the end of the precipitious battle of the roads,
  Does this cool shade construct homes?
  Here in trees life is sap,
  Here in hutments songs are simple,
  Here man’s honour lives easy.
  Have we come to our life’s own valley?
  We have crossed all our beggar days
  Crossed with the wind of the azure sea,
  We have fought out the famine nights
  The cloudy nights, we have the Sun
  With whom we build the autumn dawn. (…)

• Remembering Ravi Narayan Reddy

  17 September 2010, by Mohit Sen

  Ravi Narayan Reddy was the outstanding leader of the Telangana armed struggle. His birth centenary celebrations took place last year and are still continuing. September 7 marked his death anniversary and September 17 is the Hyderabad Liberation day. We offer tributes and salutations to Ravi Narayan Reddy by publishing the following article (constituting the introduction to RN’s autobiography) written by the renowned Marxist ideologue and CPI leader, late Mohit Sen.
  The continuity of his (…)

• Why Nuclear Companies are Coming to India

  17 September 2010, by Bharat Dogra

  One aspect of the debate on nuclear power which deserves more attention is the very low number of under-construction nuclear reactors in most developed countries. While the number of operational reactors is very high in countries like the USA and France, the number of under- construction reactors is low even in these two leading countries. This is evident from the table given below: Table - Number of Nuclear Reactors S. No. Country Operational Under Construction 1. USA 104 1 2. (…)

• Dissecting Identity Politics in J&K and Around

  17 September 2010, by Humra Quraishi

  BOOK REVIEW
  Identity Politics in Jammu and Kashmir edited by Rekha Chowdhary; published by Vitasta Publishing, New Delhi; pages: 470; Price: Rs 695, US $ 26.45.
  In these last few days I have been reading and re-reading this volume in the backdrop of the anger spilling out on the very streets of Srinagar and adjoining locales. Needless to say that this anger wasn’t built up overnight but has been simmering over the last decades. Twenty years back it had burst (…)

• Russian Fire

  17 September 2010, by Rakesh Gupta

  If Californian fires rage, Russian fires destroy crops. If Californian floods destroy the crops of vine fields in NAPPA, if oil spill destroys marine lives near Mexico, floods overtake Pakistan and China. In all these natural disasters human life is a casualty. Is it man-made? No, not natural disasters, except indirectly, as a result of playing with Nature, if one believes in entropy. It is man-mismanaged. Ask Obama and BPO, they will agree. Ask the Russians. The smog has reached Moscow and (…)

• Lok Sabha Elections 2009: Trends in Punjab

  17 September 2010

  by Lakhwinder Singh Sidhu and Sumandeep Kaur Punia
  India, being a federal parliamentary democracy, witnesses periodic elections to legislative bodies both at the national and State levels. Every election is different, in some ways, from the earlier ones. The electoral issues, manifestos, election slogans, campaigning techniques, voting behaviour etc. show some novelty in each election. The 15th general elections were held in May 2009. Since the 1990s, a notable feature of Indian politics (…)

• On Parliament’s Monsoon Session

  8 September 2010, by SC

  The monsoon session of Parliament has come to an end. But before the curtains came down on the session on August 31, the government was forced to retreat on several Bills.
  In fact the Rajya Sabha on August 31 was witness to a rare spectacle: one of the elders from the Congress benches, a former Minister for Education in Andhra, K. Keshava Rao, expressing his strong dissent with the manner in which the Education Tribunal Bill was being rushed through by the Union HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal. (…)

• Bol Kisana, Halla Bol

  8 September 2010, by Surendra Mohan

  On Thursday, August 20, the farmers of western Uttar Pradesh jammed New Delhi and held an impressive rally at Sansad Marg. They were agitating for the repeal of the Land Acquisition Act of 1894. The British imperialists, having claimed land and forests for the Raj under the Law of Eminent Domain, adopted this piece of legislation in order to acquire lands to be used for public good. Independent India did not remove this Act, the reason being economic development which the government wished (…)