Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• A Feasible Solution to the Kashmir Imbroglio

  1 June 2010, by Syed Shahabuddin

  The heart of the Kashmir Dispute is the triple claim on the sovereignty over the state by India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir. This continuing conflict has cast its shadow not only on the main protagonists or even the sub-continent as a whole but the global balance of power due to its non-emergence as a pole of the multipolar world under construction. The multipolar world cannot be limited to the USA, Russia, Europe and China; it has to take into account the Indian subcontinent and the (…)

• Contribution to Reduction of GHG Emissions by Grassroots Struggles

  1 June 2010, by Bharat Dogra

  In India (and elsewhere) we have several people’s struggles which are protesting against displacement and trying to protect their sustainable life-styles and livelihoods based on farmlands, pastures and forests, rivers and coastal areas. These struggles involve farmers, forest-produce gatherers (tribals particularly), pastoral people, fisherfolk and others with related livelihoods. These traditional livelihoods have been passed on from generation to generation, but are now increasingly (…)

• Rascal or Rogue? The Choice is Yours

  1 June 2010, by T J S George

  Jharkhand is a classic example of the damage the political class does to India. One of the richest parts of the country, it has been reduced to a cesspool of iniquity, graft, deception and crime. One statistic sums it up: in the nine years of its existence, there have been seven governments. Shibu Soren has been the Chief Minister three times—the first time for ten days in 2005, the second time for five months in 2008; the third-time drama is unfolding right before our eyes.
  Shibu (…)

• Cheonan Sinking: Implications for Peace in Northeast Asia

  1 June 2010, by Rajaram Panda

  On March 26, 2010, the Republic of Korea’s Navy corvette—1200-tonne Cheonan—sank in the Yellow Sea south of the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL) near Baengnyeong Island. An explosion in the ship’s stern broke it into two parts.1 There were 104 sailors on board, of which 46 were killed and the rest 58 were rescued. Initially, South Korea suspected the North Korean hand in the mishap but without convincing proof, it did not charge North Korea of this act. In order to establish conclusive (…)

• In the Wake of the Dantewada Killings

  1 June 2010

  COMMUNICATION
  This is with reference to the killing of 44 people —including 28 civilians and 16 special police officers—reportedly by Maoists, by blowing up a bus in Dantewada district (in Chhattisgarh) on May 17. (The Times of India, May 18, 2010) Those who are familiar with the ground realities in Chhattisgarh [including intellectuals, such as B.K.Roy Burman and Arundhati Roy, journalists, such as Shoma Chaudhury and Gautam Navlakha, and civil rights groups, such as the People’s Union (…)

• CPI (Maoist) and Operation Green Hunt

  1 June 2010

  COMMUNICATION
  Introduction
  About one hundred and fifty years ago Karl Marx in a historic study observed that British Imperial Capitalism smashed the economic foundation of the then pre-colonial India based on self-contained and self-sustained village units with a static stability for centuries. This, of course, facilitated its development by the Indian bourgeoisie after independence. But it appears that vast patches of areas, by no means insignificant and inhabited by poor tribal people (…)

• Haunted by History

  1 June 2010, by Mukul Dube

  In this benighted present, with a bleak future stretching ahead, pieces of our history have come back to haunt us. There are differences, of course, but there are samenesses also.
  “Naxalism” was described as a threat in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Areas, tracts of land, were called “Naxalite infested”, just like areas that harboured malaria or pets who harboured fleas—and “Naxalites”, whose battle was political, were lumped together with common criminals both in the realm of (…)

• Change in India’s Stance Towards SCO: The Rise and Rise of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

  1 June 2010, by Ash Narain Roy

  For long India remained indifferent to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). New Delhi’s position towards the Organisation was at best ambivalent. Now that this regional grouping has acquired strength and muscle, India is showing a keen interest in joining it. New Delhi considers SCO membership vital for promoting its interests in the region. The government has written to its missions in four Central Asian countries as also in China and Russia to do the needful in this regard (…)

• UPA’s Report Card

  25 May 2010, by SC

  The ruling coalition—UPA-II—has completed one year in office. If one takes UPA-I and UPA-II together, this month the United Progressive Alliance, led by Sonia Gandhi with Dr Manmohan Singh as the head of government, completes six years.
  True, in these six years the government at the Centre has ensured communal harmony with the Hindutva forces unable to mount, at least for the present, renewed assault on our secular values and pluralist ethos even if linguistic parochialism of the (…)

• Peace Now in Tribal Areas Open Letter to President of India

  25 May 2010, by B.D. Sharma

  Dear President,
  I, with my life-long association with tribal affairs, beginning with the troublesome days in Bastar (1968) and having the privilege of being the last Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (1986-1991), am constrained to approach you at a critical time when we are witnessing virtual collapse of the constitutional regime for the tribal people while being attacked and suppressed in a war-like situation.
  I approach you directly because people (…)