Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Growth Despite Bloodshed?: Intra-state Conflict in South-East Asia

  1 November 2009, by Anna Louise Strachan

  Internal conflict poses one of the greatest obstacles to South-east Asian integration and regional development today. Daljit Singh claims that “for the near future, the main sources of South-East Asia’s insecurities will continue to lie not in its external environment but within South-East Asia itself”.1 This is demonstrated by the fact that most of the countries within the South-East Asia region are stricken by some form of internal strife. In fact, Singapore and Brunei alone can claim to (…)

• State Assembly Poll Results and Beyond

  25 October 2009, by SC

  The results of the elections to the three State Assemblies of Maharashtra (288 seats), Haryana (90 seats) and Arunachal Pradesh (60 seats)—that went to polls on October 13—have come in following the counting of votes today.
  At one level it is a victory for the Congress in all the three States as it has left its opponents way behind—it has emerged as the undisputed front-runner having swept the polls in Arunachal Pradesh, returned to power by securing a majority with its ally, the NCP, in (…)

• Quest for Socialism

  25 October 2009, by Surendra Mohan

  (The Congress Socialist Party was formed on October 21-22, 1934 in Bombay. The following article, by the leading Socialist ideologue in the country, is being published on the occasion of the CSP’s 75th anniversary.)
  The Congress Socialist Party was formed by those Congress workers who wanted to link the anti-imperialist struggle with socialism. They felt that it would, on the one hand, motivate the working classes to join the struggle and provide it the necessary striking power, and, on (…)

• JP: Some Reflections

  25 October 2009, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  Jayaprakash Narayan has carried with him fulsome tributes from all political circles-his adherents and admirers, his adversaries and detractors. A life of ups and downs of heroic times and despairing moments Living beyond the Psalmist’s assigned span, JP had not only witnessed mighty deeds but participated in them in the company of the great and was often acclaimed as one of them. Where History will place him in the pantheon of the architects of our freedom, it will be known only to (…)

• An Open Letter to Sasi Tharoor, my Representative in Parliament

  25 October 2009, by N A Karim

  Dear Mr Sasi Tharoor,
  I am a voter of the Thiruvananthapuram parliamentary constituency from which you were returned to the Lok Sabha in the last elections. With the political glamour of a recent Malayalee contestant to the world’s greatest prestigious executive post, Secretary-General of the United Nations Organisation, you won the parliamentary elections with a wide margin of votes over your rivals. As expected, you were made the Minister of State for External Affairs in the Dr Manmohan (…)

• Why India’s Diplomacy is in Disarray

  25 October 2009, by M K Bhadrakumar

  India has a substantial policy crisis on its hands with the US indicating that the Taliban did not pose a direct threat to its interests,
  The United States couldn’t have chosen a worse moment to reveal its mind on the Taliban than on October 8 evening even as the details were filtering in regarding the car bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul. Worse still, the Taliban lost no time claiming responsibility for the attack, which claimed 17 lives.
  A senior US official in (…)

• Letter From Kolkata: Dissecting Vedic Village Scandal

  25 October 2009, by Amitava Mukherjee

  Some of the corporate houses of the country have now reasons to feel despondent. Contrary to public perception, even after Singur and Nandigram they had not lost faith in the West Bengal Government’s ability to acquire agricultural lands of poor farmers for setting up projects which are likely to fatten the money bags of those industrial barons and their middlemen. Recently this came out into the open after a sordid drama was unmasked in what is now being called in West Bengal the Vedic (…)

• Sri Lanka: Five Months After

  25 October 2009, by Apratim Mukarji

  Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa must be a rare civilian leader who has given birth to a new military concept by winning the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Defence academies and experts have been studying what has come to be known as the “Rajapaksa model”.
  The unexpected and complete demolition of the LTTE—long considered the most feared terrorist organisation in the world which had successfully withstood the might of the Sri Lankan state for nearly three (…)

• Behind Sri Lankan Bloodbath

  25 October 2009, by Brahma Chellaney

  Colombo’s victory over the Tamils shows India’s power is on the wane.
  Thousands of non-combatants, according to the United Nations, were killed in the final phase of the Sri Lankan war this year as government forces overran the Tamil Tiger guerrillas. Nearly five months after Colombo’s stunning military triumph, the peace dividend remains elusive, with President Mahinda Rajapaksa setting out—in the name of “eternal vigilance”—to expand by 50 per cent an already-large military. Little (…)

• Fanatic Dalits, Empowered Dalits?

  25 October 2009, by Subhash Gatade

  BOOK REVIEW
  Fascinating Hindutva: Saffron Politics and Dalit Mobilisation by Badri Narayan; 2009; Sage; pages 195.
  The Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, —a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring (…)