Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Why Afzal Must Not Be Hanged

  25 May 2010, by Nandita Haksar

  All day I have been getting calls from television channels asking me for a bite on the Afzal case. I have refused. Whatever I wanted to say has been written in my book Framing Geelani, Hanging Afzal: Patriotism in the Time of Terror.
  The question of Afzal came up because of the judgement in the Mumbai attack case and death sentence to Kasab. The facts of the two cases are different and there is no link between the two cases.
  If the media really wanted to hear Afzal’s side of (…)

• Maoism in the Mainstream

  25 May 2010, by Ajay K. Mehra

  Even as ’Operation Green Hunt’ is trekking a bumpy road to taming the Maoist challenge, the emerging trends indicate, though retaining their violent identity, the politics of the gun is being increasingly mainstreamed into India’s political culture of orderly mayhem. The recent media exposure regarding their linkages with police and CRPF gun-runners in UP and fratricide among the ranks expose that their rutted road to revolution is following some of the familiar trends in mainstream politics (…)

• Civil Society’s Call for Immediate Cessation of Hostilities and Dialogue

  25 May 2010

  We, the undersigned, welcome the public statement of Mrs Sonia Gandhi, the President of the Congress Party, that the extreme neglect of the tribal areas is at the root of the present crisis in those regions. We hope that this appreciation of the need to go deeper into the question would lead to initiatives for immediate cessation of hostilities and dialogue so that the process of people-oriented development can be made feasible.
  Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer, former Judge, Supreme Court of (…)

• Understanding the Present State of Globalisation

  25 May 2010, by Amna Mirza

  BOOK REVIEW
  Socio-Cultural Diversities and Globalisation: Issues and Perspectives edited by S.R. Mehta; Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Rashtrapati Nivas, Shimla; pages 364; price: Rs 595.
  In recent times, globalisation—the process signifying interaction and integration among the people, companies, governments of different nations given impetus by international trade, investment, and information technology—has been a topic for debate, discussion and dissection amongst academics. (…)

• Why we Won’t Learn from New York

  25 May 2010, by T J S George

  The world will applaud the way America defeated the New York bombing attempt.
  Luck, of course, plays a part in such matters. But in this case no one can deny the skill and professionalism with which the investigators proceeded until they got their man in dramatic style.
  Luck came in the form of a footpath vendor who noticed smoke inside a parked van. It was lucky, too, that he was a Vietnam war veteran who had a fair idea of smokes and fires. It also happened that a mounted police (…)

• The Panj Pyaras of Manu

  25 May 2010, by M.N. Buch

  My Gita, Bible, Quran, Guru Granth Saheb in all temporal affairs is the Constitution of India. This Basic Law, parts of which cannot be amended as per a landmark ruling of the Supreme Court in the Keshvanand Bharti case, binds all Indians to certain fundamentals which we must accept, or cease to be Indians on their rejection. These are contained in the Preamble, reinforced in the Fundamental Rights, amplified in the Directive Principles of State Policy and enshrined in the Fundamental (…)

• Offloading Some Ironies

  25 May 2010, by Humra Quraishi

  Sitting in the midst of this unbearable heat, let me offload some of those ironies that hit and continue to hit. Last week’s stampede at the New Delhi Railway Station is one of those offshoots of complete mismanagement, coupled with two teasers—the concerned Union Minister, Mamata Bannerji, giving those confusing statements from faraway West Bengal; not even bothering to catch the next train to the accident site and then opening or shutting her month. Though, of course, her coming here (…)

• Open Letter to P. Chidambaram

  25 May 2010

  Dear Mr Chidamabaram,
  This is in reference to the press release by the Union Home Ministry which has warned ‘civil society groups, non-governmental organisations, intellectuals and the general public’ to refrain from ‘supporting the CPI(Maoist) ideology’ as it will attract action under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. It warned that under Section 39 of the Act, “any person who commits the offence of supporting such a terrorist organi-sation with inter alia intention to (…)

• Fallacy of GDP Growth as a Measure of Economic Well-being

  25 May 2010, by B P Mathur

  We have for over a century been dragged by the prosperous West behind its chariot, choked by the dust, deafened by the noise, humbled by our own helplessness, and overwhelmed by the speed. We agreed to acknowledge that this chariot-drive was progress, and the progress was civilisation. If we ever ventured to ask, ‘progress towards what, and progress for whom’, it was considered to be peculiarly and ridiculously oriental to entertain such ideas about the absoluteness of progress. Of late a (…)

• Bhairon Singh Shekhawat Is No More

  25 May 2010, by SC

  Former Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, 86, who was a three-time non-Congress CM of Rajasthan, passed away in Jaipur on May 15 following a heart attack. He headed the first non-Congress government in the State in 1977 and was an able administrator. An ajatashatru in the literal sense of the word, Shekhawat was above petty party politics when it came to upholding the interests of the nation. In this respect there was much in common between him and erstwhile PM A.B. Vajpayee. Both (…)