Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• After the ‘Judicial Tragedy’ in Bhopal

  14 June 2010, by SC

  A friend of ours sent this SMS message late on June 7 following the judgment of a local court in Bhopal on the world’s worst industrial disaster that happened in the night of December 2-3, 1984: “The Bhopal verdict proves the Indian state—government, poll parties and judiciary—is slave of global capital. If Bhopal victims now take up arms, they’ll surely be called ‘terrorists’ and Green Hunt may be launched against them. Twentysix years, but should we forget?” The essence of what this friend (…)

• Rajapakse’s Visit

  14 June 2010

  COMMENTARY
  Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s visit to India offered the Union Government with an opportunity to highlight the plight of the Sri Lankan Tamils in the island state as well as demand the resettlement of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) and successful implementation of a reconciliation plan for the war-ravaged state, apart from urging for concrete steps to guarantee an overall political settlement of the ethnic problem. The widespread protests in Tamil Nadu (…)

• God’s Chosen Rogues

  14 June 2010, by T J S George

  There is no country in the world—perhaps in history—like Israel. It has done wonderful things like turning deserts into lush agricultural farms. It has also turned itself into a singularly evil state. Its resort to cruelty against Palestinians has few parallels in modern history. Its nuclear hypocrisy is unparalleled too.
  Israel’s greatest exceptionality is the immunity it commands in the world. It can do pretty much what it likes—and get away with it. Other countries get damned by (…)

• Understanding the Maoist Threat and Dealing with It

  14 June 2010, by Balraj Puri

  After the massacre of 76 security persons in Dantewade in Bastar, a part of the Chhattisgarh State, a sort of war began between the government and the Maoists which, according to the Union Home Minister, was started by the latter, more so in the mindset of the combatants. Since then the situation has been aggravated. Forty persons travelling in a police bus in the same area were killed. The latest is a train blast in Jnaneshwari Express in the Midnapur area of West Bengal, alleged to be the (…)

• Human Rights—Rhetoric and Reality

  14 June 2010, by D.R. Chaudhry

  Human rights are those rights and freedoms by acquiring which one achieves one’s potential in various fields. Since the dawn of human civilisation, human beings have been striving for human rights. Undoubtedly, there has been a marked progress since the time of slavery when human beings were no better than chattel, yet a lot is yet to be achieved in this field.
  In pre-modern cultures, the concept of human rights did exist but it suffered from serious limitations. Aristotle, the Greek (…)

• Documents adopted at the People’s Convention on IDPs, Detainees and War Crimes in Sri Lanka, New Delhi, June 7, 2010

  14 June 2010

  DOCUMENTS
  (A daylong People’s Convention on IDPs, Detainees and War Crimes in Sri Lanka was held in New Delhi on June 7, 2010 just before Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s visit to India beginning June 8. It was jointly organised by several organisations and institutions. The Convention finalised a Letter to the PM (which was thereafter signed by the participants and sent to him), and adopted a Statement on the Sri Lankan Situation (alongwith a Roadmap for Dignified Resettlement, (…)

• India-Sri Lanka | Changing Political Relationship: Post-1990 Phase

  14 June 2010, by Gurnam Chand

  The immediate threat to any country arises in its neighbourhood. That is why the maintenance of peace, stability and friendship with neighbouring states is considered basic to a nation’s foreign policy. India’s relations with its neighbours therefore constitute a critical component of its foreign policy. The specific geo-strategic location of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean and ethnic affinity of the Indian Tamils with the Sri Lankan Tamils have been the most important factor in their (…)

• Danger Signal of Degeneration

  14 June 2010, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  I write these lines after a fortnight has passed since that shocking incident took place in a suburb of the city of Calcutta. Three women and their driver returning from duty assigned by the government’s Health Department were detained by a gang of ruffians, their belongings looted, their van set on fire and they were beaten and the women criminally assaulted, in which one of them died alongwith the driver and two others are still hospitalised.
  This ghastly crime was committed in a (…)

• Scholarly Critique of Unipolar World Order

  14 June 2010, by Vijay Kumar

  BOOK REVIEW
  World Order: Vision and Reality by Hans Kochler, edited by David Armstrong; International Progress Organisation, Vienna; Indian print published by Manak Publications, Delhi; pages 530, price: Rs 2000.
  The book under review offers a serious, indeed searching, critique of the current world order shaped by the sole superpower and for this reason alone is bold and scholarly response to unipolar political order. The range and horizon of Prof Kochler are truly amazing. The book (…)

• Scrap All Dams and Hydropower Projects on Ganga

  14 June 2010

  Call from Srinagar (Garhwal) Seminar
  The following is a statement issued by participants at a seminar “Social and Environmental Impacts of Hydro Power Projects on Alaknanda and Mandakini Rivers”, HNB Garhwal (Central) University, Srinagar
  (Garhwal), Uttarakhand, April 24-25, 2010.
  We, the undersigned, who gathered in Srinagar (Uttarakhand) from different parts of India on April 24 and 25, 2010, join together with the people of Uttarakhand to assert with all the force at our (…)